SIBERIA 


^N  RMPIRE  IN  THE  MAKING 


Gift   of 
G,C.  DeC-amo 


Siberian  laborers.    A  photograph  in  which  the  different  types 

of   faces  are  of  remarkable  interest 


THROUGH  SIBERIA 

AN  EMPIRE   IN   THE   MAKING 


BY 
RICHARDSON  L.  WRIGHT 

AND 

BASSETT  DIGBY 


NEW  YORK 

McBRIDE,   NAST  &  COMPANY 

1913 


Copyright,  1913,  by 
McBride,   Nast  &  Company 


Published,  March,  1913 


etc    t  <  *■ 


^ 


DK 

W35t 


I 


§? 


TO 
M.  A.  W.  AND  M.  D. 


^ 
^ 


^ 


402410 


PREFACE 

WE  wish  to  express  our  gratitude  to  the  following 
friends  in  Siberia  and  Manchuria,  who  showed 
the  greatest  alacrity  to  help  us  see  these  much 
misrepresented  and  misunderstood  lands  as  they  really 
are :  Mr.  Reinecke,  the  American  consular  agent  at  Omsk ; 
his  son,  Colonel  Savlovski  of  Tomsk;  and  his  courteous 
henchman,  Trainer  Tombeark  of  Salaiyeer;  Mr.  A.  K. 
Speight  of  Tomsk,  to  whom,  in  large  measure,  we  owe  our 
information  about  the  minerals  and  fauna  of  Siberia ;  the 
Danish  colony  of  Irkutsk  —  Alfred  Shonebeck,  J.  B. 
Johansen,  K.  Pade,  Mr.  Christensen  and  the  rest  —  who 
extended  hospitality  to  us  in  the  Siberian  metropolis  and 
who,  like  Mr.  Speight,  gave  up  much  of  their  spare  time 
to  furnish  us  with  detailed  information  about  the  features 
and  institutions  of  the  country ;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Otto  Vogler 
of  Stretensk,  through  whose  good  offices  we  were  able  to 
obtain  the  ill-fated  Why  Not  ?  and  secured  convincing  edu- 
cation in  the  matter  of  running  a  little  wooden  boat  through 
a  series  of  unaccommodating  ice- jams  on  the  upper  Amur ; 
Mr.  Simon  Gordon  of  the  Siberski  Bank  and  the  genial 
representative  of  the  American  Harvester  Co.  at  Bla- 
gowestchensk  in  Amurland;  a  couple  of  unknown  but 
eminently  knowable  young  British  officers  of  the  Imperial 
Chinese  Customs  stationed  at  lonely  posts  on  the  lower 
Soungari ;  Ta  Sin  Shan,  "  boss  "  of  the  native  Manchurian 
baiting  house  in  the  plague-stricken  city  of  Tsitsitcar,  who 
looked  after  one  of  us  like  a  mother,  and  dieted  him  on 
the  finest  bamboo  sprouts  and  the  most  luscious  of  sea- 


PREFACE 

slugs;  Mr.  iNorman,  chief  of  the  Chinese  section  of  the 
Husso-Asiatic  Bank  of  Kharbin,  and  his  two  colleagues, 
United  States  Consul  General  Eisher  of  Mukden,  and  the 
British  consul's  young  assistant  in  the  city;  Mr.  Levy  of 
Dairen,  the  editor  of  the  Nishi  NisJii  Shinbum,  and  Mr. 
Mullett-Merrick,  the  British  Anglican  pastor,  and  C.  V. 
Hibbard,  the  American  chief  of  the  Japanese  Y.  M.  C.  A. ; 
Mcholas  Zoobschevski,  and  Mr.  Martin  of  the  American 
consulate  of  Kharbin;  and  last,  but  not  least,  the  un- 
known Russian  mining  engineer  at  Ookteechenskaia-on- 
Shilka,  who  tactfully  broke  the  news  that  our  not  unappre- 
ciated bottle  of  what  we  took  to  be  a  kind  of  spiced  vodka 
was,  in  cold  fact,  a  distillation  of  lavender  water. 

Acknowledgments  are  due  to  the  proprietors  and  editors 
of  the  following  journals  in  which  some  of  the  photo-: 
graphs  and  portions  of  the  letter-press  of  this  book  have 
already  appeared:  The  New  York  \Yorld,  The  jSTew  York 
Tribune^  The  New  York  Evening  Mail,  Travel,  the 
Chicago  Daily<  News,  The  Albany  KnickerbocJcer  Press, 
The  London  Daily  Express,  The  Pall  Mall  Gazelle,  The 
London  Graphic,  The  London  Shooting  Times,  Paris 
L'Excelsior,  Paris  Nos  Loisirs,  Rotterdam  Der  Week,  and 
the  Curtis-Brown  syndicated  service. 

E.  Lw  W.  and  B.  D. 


CONTENTS 

I  Third  Class  into  Siberia 1 

II  Omsk — the  Coming  City 9 

III  Tomsk — a  City  of  Orgies  and  Education   ....  19 

IV  Sledging  South  to  the  Salaiyeer  Mountains  ...  43 
V  Paying   Calls 63 

VI  Irkutsk,  the  Unregenerate 80 

VII  Settling  Siberia 98 

VIII  On  to  Stretensk 114 

IX  Stretensk  in  Trans-Baikalia 128 

X  Down  with  the  Shilka  Ice 139 

XI  The  Siberian  Village  and  the  Villagers   ....  163 

XII  Voyaging  through  Amurland 181 

XIII  The  Pageant  of  Tsitsitcar 203 

XIV  Kharbin  after  the  Plague 219 

XV  Down  the  Backbone  of  Manchuria 230 

XVI  The  Japanese  in  Dairen 246 

XVII  Seven  Years  Later     ......     ..    ...    ......  257 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Siberian  laborers Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

A   Third   Class   Food   Booth 2 

A  Railway  Station 2 

The   Blockhouse   at   Yakutsk 6 

A  View  of  the  Main  Street  of  Omsk 10 

Kirghiz  Tribespeople 14 

The  City  of  Tomsk 20 

The  University  of  Tomsk 24 

The  Institute  of  Technology,   Tomsk 24 

A  Crowded  Pony  Market 28 

Two  Newsboys  of  Tomsk 32 

Marketplace  in  Tomsk 32 

An  Old  Gateway 36 

The  Heater  in  a  Hotel  Room 36 

On  a  Sledge  Track  Across  the  Steppes 44 

The  Savalovski  Stud  Farm  in  the  Salaiyeers   .......  52 

A  Simple  Windlass  Over  a  Gold  Mine  ...'.....  52 

Gold  Washing  on  the  Keya  River ,.,,.;..  60 

The  Samovar .  64 

The  Justice  of  the  Peace 70 

A   Typical   Siberian   Hut 76 

An  Interior  View 76 

Principal  Street  of  Irkutsk 84 

The    Waterfront    of   Irkutsk 92 

Settlers  of  Siberia  waiting  for  a  train 102 

A   Group   of    Mongols 106 

Railway  Guards 110 

A  Prison  Railway  Coach 110 

Booriats,  a  Tribe  of  the  Lake  Baikal  Region 116 

Another  Group  of  Booriats 116 

Lake  Baikal 120 

Crossing   the   Shilka    River 126 

The   Stretensk    Firehouse 130 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 

PAGE 

A  Chinese  Lecturer  of  Stretensk 136 

A   Typical  Street  Scene   in   Stretensk 136 

The  Why  Not?  on  Wheels 140 

Jack,  a  Dog  with  Individuality 140 

The  Door  of  a  Criminal  Stopping  Station 148 

The  Why  Not?  "Roosting  in  the  Willows" 148 

Chinese   Carts 160 

The  Start  of  the  Ride  to  Ookteechenskaia 160 

Building   in  Siberia  is  done   by  Socialistic   Companies    .      .      .  164 

A    Siberian    Log    Hut 170 

The  Wooded  Banks  of  the  Amur 178 

Scene    Along  the    Amur 178 

A   Glimpse   of  the   Waterfront  at   Blagowestchensk    ....  182 

The  Square  at  Blagowestchensk 182 

"Coaling"  the  Boat  on  the  Amur 186 

A   Stack  of  Birch  Logs 186 

Russian  Gunboats  on  the  Amur 190 

A   Chinese  Band 194 

Manchus 198 

A  Chinese  Exponent  of  "The  Simple  Life" 206 

A    Chinese    Barber 206 

Chinese    Babies 212 

Chinese  Letter  Writer 212 

Three  Views  of  Execution  Day  at  Tsitsitcar 216 

A   Manchurian   Porter 220 

A  Chinese  Dray 220 

A    Plague    Ambulance 224 

A   Plague   Pit 224 

Burying  a  Plague  Victim 228 

A  Village  Scene  in  Manchuria 234 

An  Archway  in  the  Wall  of  Mukden 234 

Afflicted  Plague  Patients  in  the  Mukden  Hospital     ....  242 

A  Bird's-eye  View  of  the  Bridge  in  Dairen 248 

A  Steel  Gun  Carriage,  a  Relic  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War     .      .  254 
Where  the  Russian  General  Kondrachenko  Fell  in  the  Siege  of 

Port  Arthur 254 

A  Valley  of  Death 258 

At  the  Summit  of  203  Meter  Hill 258 


THROUGH  SIBERIA 

Chaptee  I 
THIED  CLASS  INTO  SIBEEIA 

THERE  are  two  ways  of  going  to  Siberia,  unless  you 
are  a  Russian  subject  —  in  that  case  there  are 
other  and  cheaper  alternatives. 
You  can  go  from  Moscow  by  fast  train,  which  is  slow; 
or  by  slow  train,  which  is  even  slower.  On  the  famous 
Trans-Siberian  Express  or  the  new  Imperial  Express,  you 
can  journey  in  the  parlor  car  with  the  proverbially  dis- 
cordant piano;  the  Erench  countess  who  eternally  smokes 
the  Crimean  cigarettes ;  the  plush  lounges ;  the  wealthy 
merchants  who  once  made  that  journey  shackled  to  a  con- 
vict gang  and  grow  loquaciously  reminiscent  over  the 
vodkas  you  order  them ;  the  German  staff  officers  bound 
for  China;  the  adventuring  American  mining  engineers, 
and  a  tout  ensemble  that  glows  with  a  gay  cosmopolitan 
glamor.  C'est  magnifique  —  mais  ce  n'est  pas  la  Russie. 
It  is  not  as  easy  as  you  might  suppose  to  go  to  Siberia 
with  the  Russians  in  the  third  class  of  a  slow  train.  Man- 
fully our  istvostcliih,  he  who  had  driven  us  up  to  the 
Koursk  ITijni-Novgorod  station  at  Moscow,  with  a  dashing 
carriage  and  pair,  the  courier  of  the  Hotel  Continental, 
and  two  white-aproned  porters  stood  their  ground  and  ex- 
plained, with  abundant  gesticulation,  that  the  thing  was 

not  done,  was  unprecedented,  was  out  of  the  question. 

1 


2  THEOTJGH  SIBERIA 

However,  we  prevailed;  and  at  half -past  ten  on  Satur- 
day morning,  our  long  train  pulled  heavily  out  of  the 
Moscow  terminal  of  the  Trans-Siberian  railroad,  bound 
direct  for  Tcheliabinsk,  on  the  Asiatic  side  of  the  Urals, 
the  gateway  to  Siberia,  two  thousand  and  sixty  versts  to- 
ward the  rising  sun. 

The  fault  of  the  slow  train  in  the  Eussian  empire  is  not 
so  much  its  modest  speed  —  our  train,  on  occasion,  gath- 
ered the  dizzy  rate  of  fifteen  miles  an  hour.  What  handi- 
caps it  is  the  unconscionable  wait  at  each  wayside  station. 
There  is  a  stop  of  ten  to  twenty  minutes  at  the  tiniest  plat- 
form serving  a  group  of  rude  log  cabins,  often  without  a 
single  interchange  of  passengers.  The  stop  is  simply  and 
solely  for  the  passengers  to  get  hot  water  for  a  brew  of  tea, 
or  a  snack  of  something  to  eat.  The  claim  of  the  running 
schedule  is  utterly  subordinated  to  the  claim  of  the  buffet. 

Your  tea  is  cheap  and  fragrant.  At  every  station,  the 
Government  maintains  a  free  boiling  water  depot  for 
travelers  on  the  railroad,  and  marks  it  with  a  conspicuous 
sign-board. 

There  was  none  of  the  conventional  stiffness  of  de- 
meanor on  this  train  that  you  meet  with  in  the  Occident, 
nor  was  there  the  Oriental  riot  of  squalor  and  filth  that 
one  has  been  led  to  expect  from  the  tales  that  pass  in 
America  and  England.  Everyone  fraternized.  There 
was  no  expectoration,  no  drunkenness,  no  vermin. 

The  third  class  train  to  Siberia  is  more  a  suite  of  rooms 
than  a  series  of  railroad  compartments  on  the  European 
plan.  Erom  the  wooden  walls  on  every  side  folding  back 
rests  pull  up  or  slide  down  into  comfortable  sleeping 
shelves.  Each  passenger,  however  humble,  has  his  or  her 
shelf,  which,  with  a  quilt,  a  camel-hair  blanket  or  two, 
and  a  big,  soft  pillow,  forms  a  lounge  by  day  and  a  bed 
by   night.     You   carry   your   own   bedding  on   Eussian 


THIED  CLASS  INTO  SIBERIA  3 

trains.  This  applies  to  all  classes.  When  the  Russian 
gads  about,  he  invariably  takes  with  him,  beside  his  entire 
family,  half  his  household  goods,  which  includes  every- 
thing from  blankets,  sheets  and  pillows  to  scissors  for  cut- 
ting up  sugar  and  to  tea  tumblers.  Consequently  our 
aisles  were  for  the  most  part  blocked  with  heaps  of  lug- 
gage. If  one's  legs  got  stiff  and  he  craved  exercise,  he 
had  little  opportunity  for  it.  He  would  invariably  stum- 
ble against  rolls  of  dirty  blankets  and  dirtier  pillows  or 
kick  over  someone's  tea  kettle,  an  accident  not  without 
disastrous  results  and  a  prodigality  of  expletives.  The 
cliainiks  were  always  half  full. 

The  days  were  gloomy.  Though  the  sun  shone  in  an 
unclouded  sky,  a  keen  wind,  coming  up  from  the  southern 
steppes,  raised  blinding  clouds  of  fine  snow  for  fifty  feet 
from  the  ground.  There  were  few  idle  folks  among  us, 
however.  By  day,  with  one  accord,  we  all  brewed  chai, 
carved  and  shared  our  snacks  of  food,  and  exchanged  ciga- 
rettes. From  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  nightfall 
there  was  always  a  brew  of  tea  near  by,  and,  kettle  in 
hand,  a  couple  of  dozen  passengers  bolted  up  to  the 
heepatoh  or  hot  water  tap,  as  we  slowed  into  each  suc- 
cessive station. 

Our  train  did  not  boast  a  diner,  but  food  you  could  buy 
at  the  buffets  or  at  the  row  of  booths  in  which  the  peasant 
women  congregate.  Every  sixth  or  eighth  station  has  its 
buffet,  sometimes  with  a  better  selection  of  dishes  than  can 
be  found  in  many  a  city  terminal  in  our  land.  The  food 
at  the  booths  was  good  and  cheap  —  newly  baked,  fragrant 
rye  bread  at  three  kopecks  (1^/^  cents)  a  pound;  baked 
fish  tarts,  each  as  big  as  a  plate,  at  two  cents  each,  contain- 
ing four  small  trout;  whole  roasted  chickens  for  fifteen 
cents ;  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  roasted  goose,  tender  and  well- 
cooked,  for  a  dime;  big  jam  turnovers  for  a  cent.     Small 


4  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

wonder  that  the  train  to  Siberia  was  one  great  picnic  party 
during  our  waking  hours ! 

The  picnicking  waned  when  night  fell.  When  it  had 
become  quite  dark,  one  of  the  conductors  would  come 
through  tbe  train,  fitting  in  the  two  flickering  candles  that 
lighted  each  room.  The  few  of  us  who  wished  to  plaj 
cards  or  read  bought  little  stumps  of  candle  from  a 
friendly  conductor  and  fixed  them  on  to  ^Ye-kopech  pieces, 
that  we  stood  on  our  shelves. 

The  young  engineer  student  took  out  his  paper-covered 
book  of  quadratic  equations  —  that  bugbear  of  youth !  — 
and  buried  his  nose  in  it.  Two  huge,  fur-capped  soldiers 
strummed  away  on  their  instruments,  one  a  balalaika  —  a 
kind  of  mandolin  with  a  triangular  base  —  and  the  other 
a  homemade,  three-stringed,  barrack-room  fiddle.  Even- 
tually they  came  to  "  Yip-Ai-Addy,"  to  which  the  Rus- 
sians have  a  fearsome  set  of  their  own  uncouth  words, 
without  a  single  lone  "  Yip  "  in  the  whole  thing.  The 
cosmopolitanism  of  "  Yip-Ai-Addy !  "  The  villagers  of 
Holland  were  reveling  in  it  when  we  had  passed  through 
a  few  weeks  previously,  and  it  had  been  a  high  favorite  in 
Antwerp's  Shrove  Tuesday  carnival  that  spring. 

A  Tartar  woman,  clothed  like  her  Russian  sisters,  but, 
being  a  Mohammedan,  with  a  thick  white  veil  from  brow 
to  foot,  crouched  into  the  corner  by  her  lame  husband  and 
yoimg  son.  Next  to  them  a  dreamy-eyed  man  of  thirty 
with  hair  five  inches  long;  a  man  who  moved  gently  and 
passed  much  time  studying  the  faces  of  those  about  him. 
There  was  a  sailor  of  the  Russian  navy,  a  linguist  who 
could  say  "  allri  " —  that  convivial  password !  —  and  ap- 
proved of  our  cigarettes.  A  bronzed  old  man,  gray- 
headed  but  tall  and  big  and  active,  with  the  physique  of  a 
Klondike  miner,  was  there.  With  his  two  young  daugh- 
ters he  was  returning  to  Omsk,  he  told  us,  from  a  visit  to 


THIED  CLASS  INTO  SIBEKIA  5 

relatives  at  Syrzan.  By  his  side  sat  a  veritable  Pied 
Piper  of  Hamlin.  You  will  recollect  his  costume  in  the 
picture  books  —  a  conical  green  felt  hat,  a  long,  pinkish 
sheep-skin  coat,  a  neck  cloth  flaming  with  scarlet  and  pink 
and  salmon  and  orange,  great  pink  felt  boots  to  the  thigh, 
boots  embroidered  with  trailing  red  flowers. 

Peasant  women,  dumpy  and  uncouth  of  figure,  shawls 
over  their  heads,  short-skirted  and  with  felt  boots  to  their 
knees,  rubbed  shoulders  with  modernized  Russian  women 
who  wore  hideous  military  jackets,  fur  toques  tilted  over 
the  brow,  and  with  execrably  hung  skirts.  A  pair  of 
dwarfs,  man  and  woman,  bunched  up  in  sheep-skins  and 
gayly  tinted  shawls,  neither  of  them  bigger  than  a  child  of 
twelve,  seemed  to  have  walked  straight  out  of  a  gnomish 
page  of  Grimm.  By  candlelight  a  tall,  mop-headed 
student,  his  flat  blue  cap  tilted  rakishly  over  his  ear,  passed 
the  time  teaching  a  little  fellow  of  ten  to  learn  and  repeat, 
viva  voce,  marked  passages  in  a  book  of  poetry.  Such 
were  our  fellow  passengers. 

It  took  three  nights  and  nearly  four  days  to  reach  the 
Urals,  three  nights  and  four  days  of  rumbling  eastward 
through  an  ocean  of  deep  snow  that  stretched,  unblemished 
for  the  most  part  by  even  a  trackside  fence,  from  the 
metals  to  the  far  horizon.  Add  a  few  birches,  fewer  pines 
and  firs,  neck-deep  snow  that  filled  giillies  and  stream  beds 
to  the  brink,  swallowed  bushes  and  shrubs  and  left  the 
approach  to  peasants'  low,  mud-walled  huts  a  clear-cut  in- 
clined plane  diving  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth. 

The  drag  up  the  Urals  was  long  and  exhausting  to  our 
wood-stoked  engines,  but  when  the  top  was  reached  the 
engineer  threw  out  his  throttle  and  we  coasted  down  the 
other  side  into  Asia. 

A  change  of  trains  was  made  at  Tcheliabinsk  which 
is  the  first  city  of  any  size  east  of  the  Urals  on  the  rail- 


€  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

road.  It  was  founded  in  1658,  the  name  being  derived 
from  the  Baskir  chieftain  Tcheliab.  For  generations  it 
has  been  an  etape  or  clearing-house  for  exiles,  but  since 
Eussia  has  gone  seriously  into  colonizing  her  big  side 
yard,  Tcheliabinsk  has  become  a  distributing  point  for 
immigrants.  The  quarters  for  these  settlers  accom- 
modate 2,000,  and  they  are  always  crowded.  A  branch 
of  the  railroad,  the  first  in  Siberia,  runs  north  from 
Tcheliabinsk  and  connects  Tinmen  and  Ekaterinburg, 
thence  crossing  the  Urals  to  Russia. 

From  Tcheliabinsk  our  train  rumbled  on  again,  skirt- 
ing the  desolate  Khirgis,  Ishim  and  Barbara  steppes. 
The  word  desolate  must  be  qualified.  We  were  now  in 
the  Government  of  Tobolsk,  the  wheat  district  of  Siberia, 
a  region  that  by  winter  is  barren  and  snow  clad,  but  rich, 
with  crops  in  summer.  !N^ow  and  then  we  pulled  up  at 
towns  that  mark  eras  in  Siberian  development.  There 
was  Kurgan,  for  example,  whose  name  signifies  that  it 
was  the  place  an  immense  barrow  once  existed.  No  trace 
of  it  remains.  To-day  Kurgan  is  a  city  of  70,000,  boast- 
ing a  grain  market,  an  immigrant  station  for  the  north- 
west Akmolinsk  district,  and  four  yearly  bazaars  that  do 
$2,500,000  worth  of  business. 

And  there  was  Petropavolask  on  the  Ishim  river  (that 
sh  ending  in  the  names  of  Eussian  towns,  by  the  way, 
means  they  are  situated  on  a  river).  Petropavolask,  with 
35,000  inhabitants,  has  a  famous  annual  hide  and  skin 
fair.  The  natives  of  the  Tobolsk  Government  have  a 
weakness  for  fairs.     There  were  400  listed  one  year. 

But  with  desolation  outside,  we  found  our  third  class 
fellow  travelers  far  more  interesting  than  the  little  towns 
we  passed.  And  they,  in  turn,  after  the  manner  of  Eus- 
sians  en  route,  gave  absolutely  no  heed  to  the  scenery 
beyond    the    windows.     Enough    for    them    that    their 


THIRD  CLASS  INTO  SIBERIA  7 

chainiks  were  not  empty  and  that  the  car  was  kept  clean. 

The  oflficial  cleanliness  on  our  train  was  highly  com- 
mendable. Every  hour  or  two  an  assistant  conductor,  or 
the  man  who  looked  after  the  steam  heating,  passed 
through  with  a  broom  or  a  handbrush,  assiduously  sweep- 
ing up  every  cigarette-butt,  cedar  nut  shell  —  cedar  nuts 
are  the  peanuts  of  Russia  —  or  scrap  of  rubbish  tossed 
on  the  clean  floor.  And  every  two  days,  during  an  hour's 
wait  at  an  important  station,  an  old  woman  would  come 
through  the  train  to  wash  the  linoleum. 

Drawbacks  ?  Well,  there  were  several.  The  cars  were 
kept  too  hot,  generally  at  72°  Fahrenheit.  On  several 
occasions  the  thermometer  went  up  to  85°  F.  and  even 
higher.  There  were  double  windows,  and  three  iron  doors 
had  to  be  passed  before  reaching  the  open  air  on  the  plat- 
form at  each  end  of  the  car.  Ventilation  was  afforded 
only  by  little  traps  in  the  ceiling  that,  at  night,  the  Rus- 
sians insisted  on  screwing  doMTi  tight.  No  amount  of 
argument  could  convince  these  simple  folk  that  by  morn- 
ing our  coach  would  rival  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta  for 
atmosphere.  It  usually  did,  but  the  Russians  appeared 
not  to  mind  it. 

The  mingling  of  the  sexes  in  sleeping  quarters  was  at 
first  embarrassing.  At  Tcheliabinsk  we  had  captured  two 
bunks,  an  upper  and  a  lower.  The  opposite  seats  were 
occupied  by  an  old  grandmother  and  a  young  girl.  By 
day  we  sat  face  to  face,  hardly  an  arm's  reach  separating 
us.  But  not  until  the  second  night  did  we  grow  accus- 
tomed to  this  twenty-year  old  girl  pulling  off  her  boots 
and  generally  disrobing,  though  it  was  rather  annoying 
when  she  took  a  notion  to  roll  a  cigarette  about  midnight 
and  insisted  on  scattering  half  the  tobacco  on  the  face  of 
the  one  of  us  who  happened  to  be  asleep  on  the  shelf  below. 

Nor  did  the  sanitary  and  washing  arrangements  in  our 


8  THROUGH  SIBERIA' 

coach  relieve  the  embarrassment  at  all.  They  were  very 
crude.     Men  and  women  shared  them  alike. 

One  confusing  note  in  all  Russian  railways  is  that  they 
are  run  on  St.  Petersburg  time.  This  necessitates  an  end- 
less amount  of  figuring,  and,  unless  one  is  a  mathematical 
genius,  he  gets  to  the  station  either  an  hour  too  late  for 
his  train  or  a  day  too  early. 

There  were  many  delays  on  the  line.  Often  we  were 
shunted  off  to  a  siding  and  lay  there  while  the  great 
Trans-Siberian  Express  rolled  by.  Once  or  twice  we  had 
to  wait  while  arrestante  wagons  full  of  criminals  and 
exiles  were  linked  to  our  train.  But  the  stops  gave  oppor- 
tunity to  wander  along  the  track  and  chat  with  the  natives 
who  gathered  around. 

There  was  still  another  rather  annoying  feature  to  our 
third  class  train.  Every  hour  throughout  the  day  and 
three  or  four  times  during  the  night,  the  conductor  and 
two  assistants  raked  through  the  train  with  a  fine-toothed 
comb,  ticket  clipping  and  inspecting.  Thirty-one  times 
were  our  tickets  clipped  before  we  reached  Omsk.  On  the 
twenty-fifth  occasion,  we  begged  the  conductor  to  clip  them 
five  times  and  then  leave  us  in  peace  for  a  day,  but  he 
evidently  believed  in  conserving  his  simple  pleasures  for 
a  more  leisurely  enjoyment. 

Thus  passed  the  time  until,  a  few  hours  short  of  five 
days  after  leaving  the  Moscow  terminal,  our  train  crept 
into  the  station  at  Omsk. 


CHAPTEiB   II 

OMSK  — THE  COMING  CITY 

O'N'E  would  be  inclined  to  call  Tomsk  tlie  capital  of 
Western  Siberia —"  Why  'Western'?"  add  the 
Tomskians,  and  greatly  exaggerate  their  popula- 
tion —  were  it  not  for  Omsk,  600  miles  to  the  westward. 

Both  are  big  and  thriving  cities  according  to  Siberian 
standards;  that  is  to  say,  great  clusters  of  log  buildings, 
generally  one  story  high  and  containing  two  or  three 
rooms;  next  to  no  street  lighting  or  paving;  no  art  gal- 
lery; a  park;  three  or  four  murders  a  week;  a  scattering 
of  schools ;  and  two  or  three  shabby  hotels,  each  merely  a 
hive  of  bedrooms  and  a  restaurant  among  the  waiters  of 
which  are  usually  a  murderer  or  two  who  have  served 
their  time  in  the  dread  ohlasts  of  the  frozen  north. 

Just  now  the  claims  of  both  Omsk  and  Tomsk  are  fairly 
evenly  balanced.  Omsk  is  the  agricultural  center,  the 
hub  of  2,000  square  miles  of  fine  pasture  land:  Tomsk 
is  the  office  of  the  Altai  Mining  District,  and,  with  its 
university  and  fifty-five  other  educational  institutions,  pre- 
eminently the  educational  capital  of  Siberia.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  talk  of  the  huge  offices  of  the  Trans-Siberian 
Railroad,  a  gem  in  the  crown  of  Tomsk,  being  transferred 
to  her  rival  city.  At  the  best  of  times  there  is  keen  com- 
petition existing  between  the  two,  and  wherever  two  or 
three  Tomskians  and  Omskians  are  gathered  together  in 
a    Siberian   vodka   shop   there   is  usually  trouble.     Tlie 

market  porters  of  Tomsk  nearly  tore  the  clothes  off  the 

9 


10  THKOUGH  SIBEEIA 

back  of  an  Omskian  boaster  one  morning  during  our  stay 
in  the  citj. 

Omsk,  with  a  station  three  miles  from  the  town  on  the 
main  line  of  the  Trans-Siberian,  1,870  miles  east  of  Mos- 
cow, has  a  population  in  the  neighborhood  of  96,000.  It 
was  one  of  the  first  big  bases  made  by  the  old-time  Rus- 
sian pioneer.  To-day  it  has  a  large  garrison  in  continual 
residence,  varying  in  numbers  from  5,000  to  20,000 
according  to  local  conditions  and  season.  The  garrison 
reaches  its  fullest  strength  in  winter. 

The  city  has  one  long,  shop-lined  street  and  a  sprouting 
of  muddy  side  alleys,  a  cathedral  of  St.  Nicholas,  three 
libraries,  thirty  schools,  a  large  theater  and  a  bad  criminal 
record.  The  natives  point  to  all  of  these  with  pride. 
'Nor  do  they  neglect  to  show  you  the  old  court  prison  in 
which  Dostoievski,  author  of  "  Crime  and  Punishment," 
lived  during  his  exile. 

Through  the  heart  of  the  town  flows  the  Irtish  Eiver, 
the  second  great  water  system  of  Siberia,  which  makes 
Omsk  the  port  of  some  15,000  miles  of  navigable  water- 
ways. One  can  take  a  boat  on  the  river  quay  at  Omsk 
and  travel  north  to  the  Arctic,  south  to  the  Mongolian 
border,  west  through  the  Tobol  to  the  Urals,  and  east  via 
the  Ob,  Ket  and  Kass  rivers,  the  Kass  canal  and  the 
Angarar  to  Lake  Baikal. 

On  the  bank  of  the  Irtish,  while  we  were  there,  was  a 
stack  of  American  harvesting  machinery  fifty  feet  deep, 
as  high  as  a  two  story  building,  and  200  yards  long,  wait- 
ing for  the  ice  to  go  out  of  the  river  before  being  shipped 
to  farmers  upon  the  northern  steppes. 

Siberia  is  beginning  to  realize  the  possibilities  of 
harvesting  machinery,  end  a  great  American  harvester 
manufacturing  concern,  practically  a  monopoly  of  this 
field,  is  supplying  huge  quantities  of  plows  and  reaping 


OMSK  — THE  COMING  CITY  11 

machines.  The  American  harvester  can  be  seen  in  all 
parts  of  Siberia  —  as  far  north  as  Yakutsk  and  southward 
on  the  edge  of  the  Gobi  Desert  where  camels  draw  the 
machines. 

Omsk  has  four  principal  articles  of  export  —  skins  and 
hides,  meat  and  butter.  In  this  respect  Omsk  is  the  Chi- 
cago of  Siberia.  To  buy  a  wolf  pelt  in  winter  at  Omsk, 
when  the  skin  is  in  the  finest  condition,  you  have  to  pay 
three  or  four  dollars.  The  ermine  pelt  now  fetches  two 
dollars.  It  could  have  been  obtained  for  twenty  cents 
less  only  a  few  years  ago.  Hare  skins  for  make-up  into 
spurious  furs  are  in  great  demand. 

The  requirements  of  fashion  were  the  cause  of  the 
greatest  destruction  in  1911  of  wild  animal  life  in  the 
history  of  Siberia.  The  total  returns  of  the  fur  trade 
for  the  country  amounted  to  more  than  $3,200,000. 
There  were  4,525,000  gray  squirrels  killed  in  the  Siberian 
woods ;  the  sales  of  the  tails  alone,  used  for  boas  and  dress 
trimmings,  amounted  to  twenty-one  tons.  One  and  a  half 
million  white  hares  were  killed  and  12,250  sables. 

From  this  one  might  suppose  that  furs  are  sold  for  a 
song  in  the  Omsk  shops.  The  prospective  purchaser, 
however,  has  an  awakening  in  store  for  him.  There  is  no 
fur  making-up  industry  in  Siberia.  All  furs  go  to  the 
big  German  clearing-house  at  Leipsic  or  to  Poland,  and 
presently  come  back  made  into  fur  coats  and  stoles. 
Thus,  in  Omsk  a  fur  coat  costs  more  than  it  does  back  in 
Poland. 

Centrally  located  in  2,000  square  miles  of  excellent 
grazing  land,  Omsk  is  also  a  great  meat  and  butter  market. 
Last  year  it  exported  to  Russia  alone  the  contents  of  nearly 
4,000  cold  storage  cars  of  meat.  Consequently  meat  is 
very  cheap  for  home  consumption. 

A  glance  at  the  household  market  prices  shows  the  cost 


12  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

of  living  to  be  rather  normal  in  Siberia.  In  summer  time 
meat  can  be  purchased  in  the  Omsk  market  for  8-12 
hopecJcs  (4-6  cents)  a  pound;  in  winter,  only  4-6 
I'opecks.  A  dead  hare  costs  thirty  hopecks  in  winter,  and 
you  can  purchase  a  pair  of  geese  for  about  a  rouhle,  half  a 
dollar. 

Potatoes  are  not  much  in  demand  in  Siberia.  The 
far  less  nourishing  salted  and  pickled  cucumbers  are 
mostly  consumed.  The  brined  cucumber  is  to  Siberia 
what  the  potato  is  to  Ireland. 

Each  summer  sees  the  establishment  of  a  big  water- 
melon market.  Eine  melons  can  be  bought  for  the  equiva- 
lent of  a  nickel.  But  now  and  again,  when  cholera  and 
intestinal  diseases  make  their  appearance,  the  health  au- 
thorities step  in  and  forbid  all  melon  sales. 

The  Siberian  butter  trade  amounts  to  some  80,000,000 
pounds  annually.  Prior  to  1893  no  butter  was  produced 
or  exported;  to-day  it  is  Siberia's  greatest  article  of  ex- 
port. The  Government,  appreciating  the  possibilities  of 
this  region,  has  established  dairy  schools  at  various  points 
and  is  subsidizing  them  at  gi'eat  expense.  The  butter 
business  is  largely  in  the  hands  of  Danish  companies  which 
employ  agents  to  travel  everywhere  up  and  down  country 
to  watch  conditions  and  earmark  each  season's  supply. 

In  the  square  of  the  church  of  St.  Nicholas  at  Omsk 
the  traveler  is  shown  a  crumbling  gateway  that,  a  century 
ago,  served  as  corner  for  the  old  stockade.  Hardly  until 
then,  unless  he  has  studied  it  elsewhere,  does  he  appreciate 
that  Siberia  has  annals  other  than  the  records  of  exile. 
Like  the  winning  of  our  own  West,  Siberia's  history  is 
the  tale  of  a  new  land  with  wondrous  resources,  a  tale  of 
natural  expansion,  of  battles  with  nomadic  tribes,  of  fear- 
less adventurers  and  explorers,  and  then,  with  the  coming 
of  the  engine  and  railways,  the  tale  of  a  virgin  country 


OMSK  — THE  COMING  CITY  13 

opened  up  by  the  progress  and  the  inventions  of  the  past 
century. 

The  first  mention  one  finds  of  Eussian  relations  with 
the  peoples  east  of  the  Urals  was  when,  early  in  the  Six- 
teenth Century,  the  family  of  Stroganovs  of  Novgorod, 
the  great  trading  company  of  the  day,  attracted  by  some 
pelts  brought  to  Novgorod  by  the  Samoied  tribesmen  from 
Siberia,  had  a  band  of  trappers  accompany  the  returning 
Samoieds  to  their  home  country.  From  that  time  on  the 
Stroganovs  engineered  a  number  of  trading  expeditious 
thither  which  brought  great  wealth  to  themselves  and 
much  news  of  the  land  to  the  eastward. 

The  man  who  led  the  first  of  these  great  expeditions, 
and  whose  name  in  Siberian  history  is  quite  comparable 
with  Daniel  Boone's  in  American,  was  Yermak  Timokeiev, 
who,  with  a  band  of  Cossacks  sent  out  by  the  Stroganovs, 
pushed  the  Eussian  eagles  the  other  side  of  the  Ural 
Mountains.  To-day  Yermak's  banner  hangs  in  the  Cos- 
sack church  at  Omsk,  and  a  short  distance  down  the  river 
from  that  city  the  Government  has  raised  a  statue  to  com- 
memorate his  battles.  His  victories  are  further  pictured 
in  paintings  on  the  walls  of  the  University  of  Tomsk. 

In  the  Seventeenth  Century  Eussian  traders  and  ex- 
plorers made  their  way  eastward,  founding  little  strong- 
holds along  the  trail,  stations  that  to-day  are  the  cities  of 
Tomsk,  Yeniseisk,  Kainsk,  Krasnoiarsk,  Irkutsk,  Yakutsk 
and  Nerchinsk.  The  Sea  of  Okhotsk  was  reached  by  the 
Cossacks  in  1G39.  By  1715  the  post  road  from  Moscow 
to  the  Sea  of  Okhotsk  was  a  well  beaten  track.  The  natu- 
ral waterways,  the  Ob,  the  Irtish,  the  Yenisei,  the  Amur 
and  the  Lena,  had  been  traveled  by  hunters  and  explorers. 

Serious  colonization  began  toward  the  end  of  the  Seven- 
teenth Century.  Post  stations  were  built,  farmers  were 
sent  out,  and,  after  them,  girls  to  marry,  much  as  England 


14^  THEOUGH  SIBEKIA 

is  sending  wives  to  the  farmers  in  her  Far  West  to-day. 
The  Altai  Mountains  were  explored  by  mining  prospectors 
in  1723,  gold  was  found,  and  the  first  cabinet  or  govern- 
ment mine  established  at  Kolyvansk.  To  the  stream  of 
immigrants  joined  many  people  who  were  discontented  at 
home  —  religious  dissenters,  and  the  exiles. 

The  work  of  exploration  was  pushed  actively  in  the 
reigns  of  Peter  the  Great  and  Catherine  11.  By  1728  a 
party  of  explorers  had  discovered  America  via  the  Bering 
Strait,  and  islands  in  the  Bering  Sea  were  settled.  Six 
years  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  signed, 
the  Russian  banner  was  planted  over  Alaska.  Our  own 
explorations  at  that  time  did  not  go  much  farther  than  the 
Mississippi. 

For  300  years  the  post  road  was  the  only  link  that  Rus- 
sians in  Siberia  had  with  civilization.  Not  until  Tsar 
Alexander  III  saw  the  strategic  and  commercial  possibili- 
ties that  only  a  railroad  could  afford,  was  there  any 
change.  By  that  time,  1890,  the  West  of  the  United 
States  was  pierced  with  trunk  lines  and  new  towns  were 
being  added  to  the  map  weekly.  But  Russia  was  slow  to 
build  railroads  even  in  her  European  provinces  and  it  is 
little  to  be  wondered  at  that  her  Asiatic  possessions  north 
of  Turkestan,  except  for  that  short  line  from  Tuimen  to 
Tcheliabinsk,  were  unconnected  until  1891.  The  im- 
perial ukase  then  went  forth  saying  that  a  railroad  should 
be  thrown  across  the  continent  of  Asia  "  to  facilitate  com- 
munication between  Siberia  and  the  other  countries  of  the 
Empire,  and  to  manifest  my  extreme  anxiety  to  secure 
the  peaceful  prosperity  of  the  country."  The  Tsarevitch, 
the  present  Tsar,  who  at  that  time  had  reached  Vladi- 
vostok to  start  on  a  long  tour  of  Siberia,  turned  the  first 
sod  for  the  building  of  the  Trans-Siberian.  Siberia's 
growth  can  be  reckoned  from  that  19th  of  May,  1891. 


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OMSK  —  THE  COMING  CITY  15 

The  railroad  was  built  at  the  rate  of  two  versts  (a  verst 
is  two-thirds  of  a  mile)  each  day  for  the  entire  8,136 
versts,  over  5,424  miles.  There  were  thirty  miles  of 
bridges  to  be  constructed,  one  of  them,  that  over  the  Ob, 
half  a  mile  long.  The  work  was  pushed  steadily  until 
the  continent  was  spanned.  The  venture  cost  Russia 
$390,000,000  —  ten  million  less  than  the  cost  of  the  Pan- 
ama Canal  —  and  its  maintenance  consumes  an  annual 
budget  of  $25,000,000.  As  an  investment,  it  pays  no  in- 
terest, for  to  reach  the  status  of  interest  it  would  have  to 
carry  10,000,000  tons  of  freight  annually,  three  times  as 
much  as  it  carries  each  year  now.  As  a  military  asset,  it 
proved  its  worth  when,  in  the  late  war  with  Japan,  Prince 
Hilkoff  trained  his  troops  and  their  stores  across  the  con- 
tinent of  Asia  to  Manchuria  on  that  single  narrow  line  of 
rails.  Double  tracking  was  commenced  two  years  ago  and 
is  nearly  finished  at  this  time  of  writing. 

In  spots,  the  present  construction  is  not  all  that  might 
be  desired.  The  bed  is  often  laid  in  swamps.  The  rails 
are  light,  and  the  embankments  none  too  secure.  Acci- 
dents occur  regularly  and  will  continue  to  occur  until  the 
entire  structure  has  been  strengthened.  Faulty  construc- 
tion, of  course,  has  much  to  do  with  the  low  speed  of  the 
trains;  yet>  from  the  latest  reports  of  the  reduction  in 
time  between  Moscow  and  Vladivostok,  it  is  evident  that 
much  has  been  done  in  the  past  year  in  the  way  of  recon- 
struction. The  present  running  time  for  the  express 
trains  from  Moscow  to  Vladivostok  is  8  days,  17  hours, 
35  minutes,  and  from  Vladivostok  to  Moscow  8  days,  11 
hours,  35  minutes.  The  time  of  the  ordinary  passenger 
train  between  these  points  is  twelve  and  one-half  days, 
and  from  Vladivostok  to  Moscow  eleven  and  one-half  days. 
According  to  reports,  it  is  thought  that  next  year  will  see 
a  further  reduction  of  twenty-four  hours  in  the  running 


16  THROUGH  SIBEETA 

time.  The  Minister  of  Ways  and  Communications  hopes, 
before  many  years,  to  provide  a  six-day  train  from  Vladi- 
vostok to  St.  Petersburg. 

Several  branch  lines  from  the  main  trunk  have  been 
proposed  —  south  over  the  old  tea  route  through  Kiakhta, 
Maimatshin,  Urga  via  the  Gobi  Desert  to  Pekin.  This 
will  shorten  by  several  days  the  distance  between  Moscow 
and  Pekin  and  will  open  up  Mongolian  traffic  and  clinch 
Russia's  hold  over  her  new  protectorate. 

There  has  been  projected  and  the  route  surveyed  for  a 
line  to  go  northeast  from  Nizhneudinsk  to  the  Lena,  then 
southeast,  skirting  the  end  of  Baikal,  till  it  joins  the 
Amur  railroad  near  the  junction  of  the  Shilka  and  Argun, 
or  the  beginning  of  the  Amur  river.  A  branch  line  will 
run  from  Irkutsk  along  the  west  shore  of  Baikal  and 
further  connect  the  projected  railroad.  This  line  will 
open  up  the  Lena  gold  fields  and  will  provide  transporta- 
tion for  the  iron  and  oil  now  being  found  in  great  quanti- 
ties on  the  northeastern  shores  of  Baikal. 

There  is  still  serious  talk  in  Trans-Baikalia  and  Amur- 
land  of  a  line  to  run  south  from  Aignn,  through  North 
Manchuria  to  Tsitsitcar  and  the  Trans-Siberian.  Aigun 
is  the  Chinese  port  on  the  Amur,  forty  versts  below 
Blagowestchensk. 

As  yet,  the  Amur  Railroad  is  far  from  completed, 
though  work  is  being  pushed.  This  line  will  open  up 
Amurland,  connect  Blagowestchensk,  Stretensk  and  Khab- 
arovsk, and,  with  the  Usurri  line  from  Vladivostok  to 
Khabarovsk,  complete  the  encircling  of  northern  Man- 
churia by  Russian  railways. 

At  present  the  principal  articles  of  transportation  over 
the  railroad  are  butter,  meat,  wheat,  and  furs.  Were 
there  light  lines  run  off  here  and  there  from  the  main  road 
—  say  to  Minusinsk,  to   Semipalatinsk,   and  northward 


OMSK  — THE  COMING  CITY  17 

through,  the  steppes  to  tap  the  arable  zone  and  convey 
these  products  —  then  Siberia  would  soon  become  a  serious 
competitor  of  the  United  States  and  Canada,  in  the  wheat 
market,  at  least.  As  it  is  to-day,  great  quantities  of 
American  wheat  are  bought  by  the  Siberians.  Siberia's 
greatest  need  is  more  railroads. 

What  this  one  trunk  line  has  done  for  Siberia  in  popu- 
lation alone  is  astounding.  Omsk  in  1891  had  37,000 
souls;  to-day  it  has  over  96,000.  The  original  population 
of  one  and  one-half  millions  in  Siberia  before  the  rail- 
road came  has  been  increased  seven  times. 

Yet  Siberia  is  to-day,  and  for  many  years  to  come  will 
be,  the  zone  of  the  railroad.  To  those  who  know  the 
country  as  a  whole,  however,  the  railroad  zone  is  an  in- 
significant section  of  that  great  land. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Siberia  comprises  some 
5,00'0',000  square  miles  —  almost  half  as  much  again  as 
the  United  States  —  much  of  which  has  never  known  the 
imprint  of  the  human  foot  nor  ever  will.  It  stretches  far 
to  the  north,  leagues  beyond  the  Arctic  Circle  where 
tundras,  or  urmans,  as  the  Eussians  know  them,  make 
settlements  other  than  the  fishing  villages  along  the  rivers 
out  of  the  question ;  and  much  of  the  land  in  the  extreme 
south  is  utterly  unsuited  for  either  agriculture  or  grazing, 
only  occasional  oases  breaking  the  monotony  of  the  barren 
steppes,  oases  w^ith  insignificant  agricultural  possibilities. 

The  most  comprehensive  view  of  Siberia,  the  view  that 
will  answer  the  questions  of  those  interested  in  the  future 
of  the  land,  is  the  division  into  belts. 

The  mining  sections  are  in  the  Urals  (which  officially 
are  not  in  Siberia),  the  Altai,  and  Trans-Baikalia. 

The  arable  zone  lies  between  the  fifty-fifth  and  fifty- 
eighth  degrees  of  latitude,  250  miles  wide  and  3,500  long. 
It  is  a  continuation  of  the  black  soil  belt  of  Eussia,  and  is 


18  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

to-day  the  producer  of  Siberia's  grain  crop.  Of  this  ara- 
ble area  only  a  small  portion  is  cultivated.  The  section 
is  visited  by  long  droughts  that  have  already  spelled 
famine  and  will,  in  time,  necessitate  irrigation.  The 
temperature  ranges  anywhere  from  50°  F.  below  zero  to 
114°  above.  The  cattle  on  these  steppes,  thinned  by  the 
rigors  of  the  climate,  do  not  compare  well  with  those  of 
more  favored  climes.  Often  whole  herds  are  killed  by 
the  cold. 

To  the  north  above  the  agricultural  zone  is  the  timber 
belt ;  and  east  are  the  taiga  or  virgin  forests  —  swamps 
with  a  tangled  growth  of  birches  and  red  firs.  Timber 
in  the  taiga  has  little  commercial  value  as  the  pith  is  soft. 
The  railroad  runs  through  the  taiga  at  many  points,  but 
only  skirts  the  edge  of  the  north  timber  belt.  Corduroy 
roads  are  laid  through  the  taiga  in  many  places.  Clear- 
ing is  accomplished  generally  by  fire;  this  is  due  to  the 
poor  supervision  of  those  sections.  Of  the  63,000,000 
acres  of  forest  land  less  than  one-half  is  under  supervision. 

At  present  Siberia's  most  important  belt  commercially 
is  the  arable  zone.  In  the  midst  of  it  stands  Omsk,  Omsk 
with  its  butter  trade,  its  meat  exportation,  its  wheat  ship- 
ments, its  fur  market  and  its  banner  of  Yermak.  In 
June,  1912,  when  the  Perm-Omsk  railroad  was  opened, 
the  city  was  given  further  advantages  for  transportation. 
Omsk  well  deserves  the  name  of  the  Chicago  of  Siberia. 

The  city  of  Siberia  to-morrow,  then,  will  be  neither 
Tomsk  nor  Irkutsk,  but  Omsk.  The  United  States  Gov- 
ernment, with  foresight,  recognized  this  years  ago  and 
established  there  her  only  consular  representative  between 
Moscow  and  Kharbin.  The  Tomskians  also  recognize 
this,  but  they  surrender  the  laurel  to  their  rival  with  great 
reluctance. 


Chapter  III 
TOMSK  —  A  CITY  OF  ORGIES  A'N'D  EDUCATI0:N^ 

OVER  a  day's  journey  eastward  of  Omsk  lies  Tomsk. 
It  is  not  on  the  Trans-Siberian.  When  the  engi- 
neers who  built  the  road  visited  the  Tomskian  city 
fathers  for  their  contributions  they  were  refused,  it  is 
said.  Tomsk  was  the  capital  of  Western  Siberia,  and  the 
natives  could  see  no  reason  for  the  mountain  going  to 
Mahomet.  The  engineers,  thus  failing  to  get  their  graft, 
pushed  the  trunk  line  on,  erecting  a  little  junction  and 
calling  it  Taiga  (in  the  woods!)  and  condescending  to  put 
a  sprout  forty-eight  miles  up  country  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  such  Tomskians  as  should  care  to  leave  their  town. 
It  is  almost  worth  a  special  journey  across  Europe  and 
a  substantial  section  of  Siberia,  to  arrive  in  Tomsk 
on  the  Taiga  night  train.  Ear  ahead  through  the  dark- 
ness flares  a  group  of  tall  arc  lamps  at  a  point  on  the  rim 
of  the  great  bowl  in  the  bottom  of  which  lies  the  city.  As 
you  approach  you  see  scores  of  rude  sledges,  mere  rafts 
of  birch  poles  held  together  with  twine,  waiting  in  long 
rows  along  the  edge  of  the  birch  coppice  that  skirts  the 
station. 

Erom  the  train  we  descended  into  picturesque  pande- 
monium. Shaggy  moudjihs  flung  themselves  upon  our 
baggage  and  hove  out  of  sight.  Deep  snow  lay  under  foot, 
and  a  heavy  snowstorm  was  sweeping  down  upon  the 
surging,  shouting,  cursing,  shoving  mob  of  fur-coated  pas- 
sengers and  istvostchiks  and  plunging  horses. 

19 


20  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

We  found  items  of  our  baggage  loaded  on  to  three  dif- 
ferent sledges,  and  a  ruffian  with  a  guileful  eye  endeavor- 
ing to  persuade  our  fox-terrier,  Jack,  to  board  a  fourth. 
It  is  an  education  to  get  baggage  away  from  a  fareless 
Siberian  sledge  driver  but,  rather  to  our  astonishment,  we 
found  that  the  enterprise  can  be  achieved  without  blood- 
shed. 

The  sledge  swung  round,  and  off  we  dashed  down  the 
long  hill  through  the  birch  woods  to  Tomsk.  It  is  a  steep- 
ish  hill,  three  miles  long,  and  our  pair  of  horses  galloped 
every  yard  of  the  way.  Soon  we  arrived  at  the  portals  of 
the  "  Hotel  Eoosia,"  and,  paying  off  the  istvostcMTc,  pushed 
through  the  treble  swing  doors  into  the  hall.  It  was  just 
after  Sunday  midnight. 

Shades  of  a  New  England  Sunday ! 

A  uniformed  band  was  blaring  out  a  brassy  march  to 
the  accompaniment  of  loud  bursts  of  laughter  and  shouted 
greetings  and  the  popping  of  champagne  corks.  In  our 
fur  coats  and  big  felt  hip  boots  we  waited  in  what  seemed 
to  be  the  wings  of  oldtime  Daly's.  Around  us  floated 
ravishing  creatures  in  high  spirits  and  ultra-abbreviated 
crimson  silk  skirts.  Sloe-eyed  maidens,  attired  as  for  the 
ballet,  flitted  by  to  join  peroxide  blondes  in  tight  pale  blue 
knickerbockers;  and  bewigged  fairies  in  fleshings  dived 
hither  and  thither  in  the  throng.  Every  now  and  again 
came  a  crash  of  broken  glass  or  a  prodigious  stamping  of 
feet  from  the  long  restaurant,  the  stage  at  the  end  of  which 
was  given  up  to  vaudeville. 

We  stayed  a  couple  of  weeks  in  Tomsk,  and  the  same 
sort  of  thing  went  on  every  night.  If  we  entered  the 
restaurant  at  half-past  nine  in  the  evening,  we  found  the 
lights  low  and  not  a  person  present.  The  evening  begins 
an  hour  later  —  and  no  one  thinks  of  going  home  till 
three  or  four  in  the  morning. 


A  CITY  OF  ORGIES  AND  EDUCATION     21 

The  Siberian  hotel,  and,  indeed,  Russian  hotels  in  gen- 
eral, have  no  public  rooms,  no  lounges  nor  smoke  rooms, 
libraries  or  parlors.  There  is  simply  the  restaurant  and 
your  bedroom.  So  you  find  a  stay  of  a  week  or  more  in- 
clined to  become  tiresome. 

The  bedrooms,  each  of  which  is  usually  equipped  with 
a  big  writing  desk,  a  couch  and  two  or  three  comfortable 
arm-chairs,  in  addition  to  the  usual  furniture,  have  sealed 
double  windows,  and  nothing  but  a  little  aperture  about 
four  inches  square  to  represent  ventilation.  They  get 
horribly  stuffy.  If  you  summon  the  manager  and  point 
this  out,  he  will  send  up  a  minion  with  a  scent-spray,  and 
the  last  stage  of  that  room  becomes  far  worse  than  the 
first.  Warmth  is  derived  from  a  big  oven,  half  in  your 
room  and  half  in  that  of  your  neighbor.  It  is  stoked  from 
the  corridor.  Rough  birch  logs  are  dumped  down  at  inter- 
vals along  the  strip  of  carpet  passing  the  row  of  bedroom 
doors,  near  the  flame-flecked  hinges  of  the  ovens,  and  from 
time  to  time  a  waiter  or  a  chambermaid  comes  along  to 
fire  up. 

Despite  lurid  tales  from  previous  travelers  in  Siberia, 
we  did  not  find  a  single  flea  in  a  Siberian  hotel.  There 
are  a  number  of  species  of  cockroach  about  on  walls  and 
floors,  but  these  are  harmless  and  add  a  pleasant  air  of 
animation  to  the  lonely  rooms. 

The  washing  facilities  of  a  bedroom  in  a  Siberian  hotel 
are  annoying.  There  is  never  any  pipe  water  supply. 
In  the  corner  of  the  room  you  will  find  what  at  first  glance 
appears  to  be  a  nickel-in-the-slot  automatic  machine.  It 
holds  a  little  basin,  usually  without  a  plug  to  stop  the 
water  running  away.  High  up  at  the  back  is  a  triangular 
water  receptacle,  holding  rather  less  than  a  quart  of  oily 
and  unclean  liquid.  You  espy  something  in  the  nature 
of  a  tap,  but  when  you  investigate  its  workings,  you  are 


22  THKOUGH  SIBERIA 

prone  to  get  a  needle- valve  jet  of  water  in  the  face,  or  you 
get  no  water  at  all. 

In  the  former  event,  what  has  happened  is  that  of  the 
two  ends  of  the  valve  tap,  you  have  unwarily  turned  to- 
ward you  the  one  that  curls  upward.  In  the  other  event, 
you  ring  the  bell  and  are  shown  how  to  go  to  work.  A 
maid  or  a  porter  strikes  a  match  and  exhibits,  underneath 
the  affair,  a  pair  of  small  treadles,  like  the  brakes  in  an 
automobile.  Preparing  for  a  wash,  you  have  to  find  these 
and  press  on  them  with  your  foot.  So  long  as  you  keep 
one  foot  on  the  treadles,  a  thread  of  water  spouts  from 
the  valve.  The  basin  having  no  plug,  the  water  stops  with 
the  removal  of  your  foot.  Cleanliness  in  a  Siberian  hotel 
is  not  next  to  godliness ;  it's  next  to  impossible. 

After  seeing  these  crude  washing  facilities  one  learns 
with  surprise  that  the  Siberian  really  does  wash.  Each 
city  has  its  public  bath  and  swimming  tank.  Saturday  is 
the  day  for  universal  ablutions.  A  Saturday  visit  to  the 
municipal  bath  is  a  revelation  to  the  foreigner  who  con- 
siders the  Muscovites  a  race  having  never  known  water. 
!N^or  is  washing  confined  to  the  city  dweller.  Even  in  the 
humblest  hut  one  discovers  the  facilities,  crude  though 
they  are.  The  country  process  consists  in  heating  stones 
red  hot,  dashing  them  with  water,  and  standing  in  the 
steam  that  rises.  A  general  soaping  follows,  then  the 
entire  body  is  beaten  with  a  bunch  of  birch  twigs  dipped 
in  hot  water.  The  foreigner's  conception  of  Siberian  un- 
cleanliness,  however,  is  possibly  justified  by  the  exterior 
filth  of  most  of  the  natives;  for  after  having  bathed  and 
scrubbed  and  soaped  and  thrashed  the  dirt  off,  the  native 
puts  on  again  the  same  clothes  he  has  been  wearing  all 
week  —  or  all  winter. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  Tomsk  is  the 
great  market  on  the  bank  of  the  Tom.     Its  wooden  booths 


A  CITY  OF  ORGIES  AND  EDUCATION     23 

are  permanent  and  there  are  hundreds  of  them.  Here  you 
will  see  exposed  for  sale  mirrors  of  shining  tin,  and  stacks 
of  the  gaudily  enameled  treasure  chests  in  which  the  Si- 
berian peasants  lock  away  all  the  little  knick-knacks  that 
might  brighten  up  their  cheerless  homes:  big  chests  of 
paper-covered  booklets,  chiefly  plays  of  an  amateur  the- 
atrical genre,  and  the  popular  crudely  colored  wall  prints 
that  did  so  much  to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  the  peasants 
when  Russia  was  suffering  reverse  after  reverse  in  her 
war  with  Japan. 

There  is  a  print  that  shows  the  assault  on  203  Meter 
Hill,  a  Meter  Hill  covered  —  needless  to  say  —  with 
mangled  Japanese  picturesquely  spouting  up  to  the  heav- 
ens in  the  lurid  whirl-wand  of  an  exploding  mine ;  Russian 
soldiers,  nonchalantly  holding  aloft  great  bowlders  of  iron- 
stone half  the  size  of  a  piano,  preparatory  to  hurling  them 
down  upon  their  enemies. 

In  another  print  you  see  a  young  red-shirted  Russian 
peasant  lout,  sprawled  at  his  ease  on  the  greensward,  who 
smilingly  stretches  out  his  fist  and  knocks  in  the  head  of 
the  Japanese  admiral  who  is  perching  rather  insecurely 
on  the  slanting  deck  of  his  cruiser.  A  Japanese  battle- 
ship is  foundering  in  the  foreground,  while  —  happy 
touch !  —  Russian  ambulance  orderlies  are  pulling  very 
gory  and  battered  Japanese  sailors  out  of  the  water  and 
attending  to  their  wounds. 

In  a  quieter  vein  are  colored  prints,  anything  up  to  five 
feet  square,  showing  the  seven  ages  of  man  from  the 
christening  font  to  the  grave ;  Alexander  II's  liberation  of 
the  serfs;  the  present  Tsar,  the  Tsarina  and  their  little 
family  looking,  with  the  tints  the  artist  has  bestowed  on 
their  garments,  remarkably  like  a  group  of  the  gaudier 
type  of  Atlantic  City  August  week-enders ;  affecting  scenes 
in  a  young  peasant's  courtship;  Old  Testament  sacrifices 


M  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

with  plenty  of  blood;  polar  expeditions  with  spearmen 
and  walruses  and  white  bears  and  the  whole  Arctic  outfit 
of  optimistic  romance. 

Around  the  market  squat  women,  nearly  snowed  under, 
mere  bundles  of  rag-wrappings  crouching  over  baskets  of 
mean  wares.  If  a  peasant  fancies  that  he  is  specially 
gifted  in  the  field  of  successful  retail  commerce,  he  has  a 
good  chance,  at  Tomsk,  of  testing  his  prowess  in  the 
market.  There  are  dozens  of  men  and  women,  each  of 
whom  presides  over  an  outspread  bale  of  wares  that  con- 
sists merely  of  a  few  old  lamp  burners,  a  battered  picture 
frame  or  two,  a  single  boot  that  has  seen  better  days,  and 
a  scrap  of  frayed  oilcloth.  Nor  are  they  neglected  by  the 
more  prosperous  passerby. 

There  are  arcades  of  hides  and  arcades  of  fish  and  but- 
ter. Both  are  frozen.  If  you  want  a  little  less  butter  or 
half  a  fish,  it  has  to  be  hacked  away  with  a  hatchet.  A 
booth  had  a  small  deer  standing  by  it.  Jack,  bent  on  the 
chase,  was  very  disappointed  to  find  it  happened  to  be  a 
frozen  corpse.  To  and  fro,  among  the  buyers,  passed 
seedy  men  peddling  jack-boots,  a  pair  or  two  over  their 
arms. 

In  a  bleak  corner  overhanging  the  bank  of  the  Tom, 
stands  the  little  eating-house  of  the  poor  —  not  the  red 
brick  house  with  the  green  sign-board,  but  the  humbler 
plank  structure  the  other  side  of  the  pony  market.  There 
it  is  twenty  degrees  of  frost  outside,  though  it  is  the  last 
week  in  March,  and  a  keen  north  wind  doubles  the  cold. 
Within,  past  the  double  swing  doors,  an  overheated  barn 
of  seething  humanity,  a  row  of  three  rooms  with  their 
dividing  walls  removed.  In  the  center  room,  a  big  iron 
stove  is  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  dogs  sleeping  around  it. 
Behind  the  stove,  a  counter  of  coarse  provisions  and  an 
arched  passage  leading  to  the  kitchen. 


The    University   of   Tomsk 


M 


ti'J^a^^:-.^^^ 


'SStLiiiill|lll| 


'J'lie   iniposintj;    front    of   the    Institute   of    i'cchnology 


A  CITY  OF  OEGIES  AND  EDUCATION     25 

At  one  end  of  the  barn,  drinks  for  nothing  —  with 
limitations.  In  America,  we  have  the  free  lunch  counter, 
where  one  can  buy  drinks  and  get  a  lunch  for  nothing. 
Here  you  buy  lunch  and  get  free  drinks,  a  nip  of  burning 
vodha  —  the  Russian  while  whisky  —  and  hot  water  for 
your  tea-brewing.  At  the  end  of  a  long  table  stands  a 
great  brass  hot  water  urn,  the  samovar.  Eanged  eight  a 
side  are  the  peasants  who  have  come  in  to  market  with 
their  rude  sledges  loaded  with  produce  or  logs. 

They  are  very  dirty  and  very  happy ;  their  garments  are 
an  extraordinary  sight.  A  patchwork  pure  and  simple,  a 
patched  medley  of  sheepskin,  rabbit  pelt,  sackcloth,  scraps 
of  grimy  linen  and  flannel  and  shoddy  cloth  rags,  sewn 
together  with  string  and  frayed  twine.  The  forlornest 
derelict  in  a  Bowery  bread-line  would  be  a  Beau  Brummel 
among  them.  They  have  each  a  paper  of  food,  which 
they  supplement  with  the  fish  and  snacks  on  the  counter, 
and,  of  course,  further  rations  of  vodka. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  room,  seated  at  small  tables,  are 
the  better  class  customers,  hackmen  and  market  porters 
for  the  most  part,  as  dirty  as  the  peasants  but  dressed  in 
good,  if  shabby,  coats,  with  gaudy  girdles  around  the 
waist.  Entertaining  them  are  the  musicians  —  a  derelict 
with  bandaged  stumps  where  his  hands  should  be,  accom- 
panied by  a  well-dressed  little  girl  of  fourteen  who  plays 
a  discordant  harp ;  a  disreputable  peasant  youth,  who  also 
has  a  harp  and  plays  it  even  worse ;  a  lad  with  a  one-legged 
hurdy-gurdy  strapped  round  his  neck;  and  three  Jews 
with  an  accordion. 

An  old  woman  finishes  a  glass  of  tea,  smacks  her  lips, 
and  pulling  out  a  paper  of  tobacco,  proceeds  to  roll  and 
light  a  cigarette.  She  throws  a  contemptuous  glance  in 
our  direction.  You  see,  we  are  smoking  briar  pipes. 
Only  the  lowest  Siberian  peasant  will  smoke  a  pipe :  it  is 


26  THKOUGH  SIBEEIA 

the  badge  of  social  degradation.  If  you  see  a  man  smok- 
ing a  pipe  you  can  place  him  at  once. 

The  little  girl  sings  a  song,  accompanying  herself  on  the 
harp.  Her  papa  goes  round  with  the  hat.  The  hurdy- 
gurdyist  has  his  turn.  Then  there  is  a  squabble  between 
the  three  Jews  and  the  youth  who  is  not  a  Jew.  The  com- 
pany sees  to  it  that  the  latter  prevails.  He  produces  a 
familiar  yet  elusive  melody  that  in  time  one  realizes  with 
a  start  is  a  gallant  attempt  at  "  La  Petite  Tonquinoise." 
He  follows  it  by  "  Yip-Ai-Addy,"  a  strange  and  pathetic- 
ally distorted  "  Yip-Ai-Addy,"  but  recognizable. 

The  Jews  lead  off  with,  of  all  tunes  in  the  world,  "  Two 
Lovely  Black  Eyes."  We  discovered  subsequently  that 
"  Two  Lovely  Black  Eyes  "  is  a  universal  favorite  through- 
out Siberia.  Wherever  you  pause  to  listen  to  a  group  of 
peasants  enjoying  a  little  accordion  concert,  there  you  will 
certainly  hear  this  ditty. 

The  beggars  are  an  interesting  feature  of  the  market 
eating-house  of  Tomsk.  The  swing  doors  fling  open,  and 
in  they  stride.  After  warming  their  hands  at  the  stove, 
they  walk  to  the  counter  and  cross  themselves.  Instantly 
the  bartender  hands  over  a  large  lump  of  bread  —  not 
stale  bread  nor  crusts;  perfectly  good  new  bread.  No 
remark  passes  on  either  side.  The  beggar  drops  the  gift 
into  a  tattered  rent  in  his  garments,  crosses  himself  and 
departs  to  the  next  eating-house.  It  is  an  eminently 
business-like  transaction. 

There  are  other  beggars  one  likes  less,  blue-cheeked, 
shivering  little  mites  of  girls,  bare-legged,  their  skirts  in 
rags,  who  have  only  just  enough  strength  to  push  back 
the  heavy  door.  Often  they  have  no  coats  nor  cloaks,  and 
the  snow  is  their  only  shawl.  They  go  direct  to  the  coun- 
ter, too  chilled  to  heed  the  inviting  glow  of  the  stove.  The 
numb  little  fingers  make  the  Sign  of  the  Cross,  and  then, 


A  CITY  OF  OKGIES  AND  EDUCATION     27 

hugging  the  precious  slices  of  bread  to  their  bosoms,  the 
children  turn  and  shuffle  away,  out  into  the  snows. 

And  there  was  a  plausible  old  ruffian  who  slid  a  folded 
slip  of  paper  under  our  saucers,  and  strolled  away  to  the 
other  end  of  the  room.  At  first  we  thought  he  was  a  local 
betting  tout  with  a  "  sure  thing  for  the  three  o'clock  "  to 
throw  away  for  a  dollar  or  two,  for  it  is  a  cosmopolitan 
type.  We  unfolded  the  paper  and  brought  to  view  the 
label  of  a  medicine  bottle.  You  cannot  mistake  a  medi- 
cine bottle  label  in  Siberia.  By  the  requirements  of  the 
law  it  is  the  big,  coffin-shaped  label  that  you  see,  if  we  re- 
member rightly,  in  "  Struwelpeter,"  illustrating  the  doc- 
tor's call  on  Cruel  Frederick  after  he  had  been  "  kickin' 
th'  houn'  aroun',"  wath  disastrous  results. 

Presently  the  old  man  came  back.  We  made  our  con- 
tribution. He  received  the  twentj-lcopech  piece  without 
a  word  of  thanks,  took  back  his  label,  folded  it  up  again, 
and  slipped  it  under  someone  else's  saucer,  strolled  to  the 
W'indow,  gazed  out  into  the  snow  for  a  while,  returned 
and  collected  —  and  picked  out  another  philanthropist. 
Enough  money  was  collected  in  that  poverty-stricken  eat- 
ing-house to  buy  a  number  of  bottles  of  any  old  medicine. 
Then  the  afflicted  one  took  his  departure.  We  met  him 
later  in  the  day  in  the  brick  restaurant.  He  was  doing 
even  better  there. 

Tomsk  is  the  home  of  the  only  university  in  Siberia. 
Founded  in  1880  and  opened  seven  years  later,  it  now  has 
a  very  creditable  attendance,  which  has  been  considerably 
underrated,  by  the  way,  by  writers  on  Siberian  affairs. 
The  private  scholarship  endowment  fund  in  1911  stood  at 
$2,500,000.     The  library  contains  110,000  volumes. 

The  University  is  non-residential,  students  having  to 
find  their  own  quarters  in  the  town.  Fees  are  very  mod- 
erate, 100  roubles  a  year.     The  year  is  divided  into  two 


28  THEOTJGH  STBEETA^ 

long  terms.  There  are  two  "  schools/'  medicine  and  law. 
The  former  is  the  more  important,  and  with  it  are  con- 
nected splendidly  equipped  anatomical  laboratories  and  a 
bacteriological  institute.  It  is  under  the  auspices  of  the 
medical  school  of  Tomsk  University  that  the  only  Pasteur 
treatment  available  in  the  whole  of  Siberia  may  be  ob- 
tained. Rabies  is  often  rife  throughout  northern  Asia, 
and  there  are  almost  always  sufferers  from  mad  dog  bite 
under  treatment  at  Tomsk. 

The  University  affords  no  courses  in  history,  literature 
or  dead  languages,  though  there  is  a  strong  agitation  for 
the  establishment  of  a  chair  in  history. 

N'ominally  quite  a  separate  concern,  but  practically 
affiliated  with  the  University  proper,  is  a  great  Institute 
of  Technology,  a  school  of  mines.  Like  the  University, 
it  is  government-built  and  subsidized.  It  is  divided  into 
three  departments,  mechanics,  chemistry  and  civil  engi- 
neering, and  furnishes  a  five-year  engineering  course  of 
ten  terms,  as  compared  with  the  four-year  course  to  be 
found  in  the  United  States  and  Britain.  The  year  opens 
in  September,  with  the  enrollment  of  some  1,Y00  students, 
but  by  January  a  couple  of  hundred  have  usually  dropped 
out  for  some  reason  or  other.  Many  students  have  to 
leave  on  account  of  home  bereavements  and  straitened 
circumstances,  though  the  attendance  fee  is  only  $25  a 
year.  A  hundred  students  come  in  free  every  year,  with 
government  scholarships.  Fifty  students  can  win,  during 
their  attendance,  scholarships  to  the  value  of  $150  a  year; 
in  addition  to  which  there  are  various  private  and  munici- 
pal scholarships.  The  students  furnish  their  own  food 
and  clothes,  and  live  in  town  lodgings.  There  is  only  one 
small  dormitory  in  the  college  buildings. 

!N'ow  where  do  all  these  students  come  from  ?  Curi- 
ously, quite  a  large  number  from  the  faraway  Caucasus, 


0/ 

a 
E 

c 
o 

& 

> 

u 
re 

•a 
c 
re 

•O 

IV 

& 

o 

u 


o 


c 
O 


A  CITY  OF  ORGIES  AND  EDUCATION     29 

in  southern  Russia.  The  Caucasians  are  splendid  war- 
riors but  poor  students,  prone  to  indolence  and  a  lack  of 
alacrity  in  catching  the  drift  of  what  technical  text  books 
have  to  say.  They  find  it  difficult,  in  very  many  cases, 
to  pass  the  necessary  entrance  examinations  of  Russian 
universities.  The  entrance  examination  of  Tomsk  is  a 
low  intellectual  hurdle,  and  the  Caucasus  has  discovered 
the  fact. 

The  Caucasians  are  the  "  foightin'  Oirish  "  of  the  Rus- 
sian empire.  "  Faith  an'  Oi  don't  know  what  mebbe  th' 
gov'nment  here,"  remarked  the  legendary  stalwart  of  Cork, 
on  landing  at  Battery  Park,  "  but  Oi'm  agin  it  annyways." 

That  is  the  attitude  of  the  Caucasian.  It  is  not  so 
much  the  righting  of  grievances  that  he  craves  —  though 
his  people  have  plenty  of  pitiful  wrongs  that  rankle  pain- 
fully —  as  the  pleasure  of  stripping  off  his  coat  and  hurl- 
ing himself,  on  principle,  into  a  real,  satisfying  rough- 
house. 

From  the  University  of  Tomsk,  Caucasians  are  often 
"  sent  do^\^l,"  or,  more  grimly,  sent  up  —  up  to  the  prisons 
of  the  frozen  north. 

There  are  hundreds  of  the  sons  of  the  poor  popes  or 
village  clergy  at  the  School  of  Mines  and  the  University. 
The  brightest  students  come  from  fertile  Amurland,  to 
the  north  of  Manchuria. 

We  were  told  by  the  genial  dean  of  the  Institute  of 
Technology,  Prof.  L.  L.  Tovey  —  who  is  of  British  ex- 
traction and  speaks  excellent  English  —  that  American 
mining  engineering  text  books  are  very  largely  used  at 
Tomsk.  "  They  are  the  best  in  the  world,"  he  added ; 
"  such  works  as  those  of  Saunders,  Richards  of  Harvard, 
Storms  of  California  and  Peel  of  Columbia."  File  after 
file  of  United  States  government  mining  reports  line  the 
shelves  of  Professor  Tovey's  study. 


30  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

In  addition  to  the  University  and  the  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology of  Tomsk,  a  "  People's  University  "  has  been  pro- 
jected, and  buildings  are  in  the  course  of  erection.  Its 
inception  is  due  chiefly  to  the  generosity  of  M.  Makymisar, 
the  owner  of  the  biggest  bookshop  and  the  great  private 
circulating  library  of  Tomsk,  who  three  years  ago  pre- 
sented the  city  with  the  sum  of  $50,000  for  this  object. 
Large  private  and  municipal  donations  followed.  The 
details  of  instruction  had  not  been  planned  when  we  left 
Siberia,  but  the  underlying  idea  is  to  educate  the  masses 
at  nominal,  if  any,  charges,  probably  along  the  lines  of 
simply  phrased  and  interesting  lectures. 

The  students  of  the  Tomsk  University  have  dramatic 
and  literary  societies,  but  participation  in  their  activities 
is  rather  desultory.  The  students  are  too  poor  to  indulge 
in  the  social  life  that  forms  so  pleasant  an  adjunct  to  the 
Varsities  of  more  favored  climes. 

The  Institute  of  Technology  has  the  excellent  system 
of  recommending  such  students  as  so  desire,  to  suitable 
employers,  during  the  long  summer  vacation,  so  that  the 
lads  may  obtain  an  insight  into  the  practical  side  of  their 
work  in  time  to  realize  what  branches  of  their  university 
studies  need  special  attention.  The  employers  find  them 
keen  and  valuable  aides,  and  pay  them  a  fair  salary  during 
their  engagement. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  the  reader,  at  this  point,  to  take 
a  glimpse  at  the  much  misunderstood  system  of  elementary 
education  in  Siberia.  It  is  among  the  average  man's 
numerous  misconceptions  that  Eussia  has  very  few  schools 
indeed;  and  Siberia  none,  nor  any  prospects  of  obtaining 
better  schooling  than  that  of  the  knout  and  tlie  onslaughts 
of  wolf  and  Arctic  cold.  It  is  true  that  the  latest  statistics 
give  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  people  in  Siberia  as  illiterates. 
Nevertheless  there  are  schools  a-plenty. 


A  CITY  OF  OEGIES  AND  EDUCATION     31 

At  the  foot  of  the  ladder  comes  the  Narodnija  UtcM- 
listcha,  the  national  free  elementary  school,  attendance  at 
which  is  optional.  It  teaches  practically  nothing  more 
than  the  three  R's,  and  that  is  about  as  much  as  the  bud- 
ding Siberian  peasant's  sluggish  wits  can  cope  with  yet 
awhile.  This  type  of  school  exists  in  all  but  the  smallest 
and  least  accessible  villages,  and  is  decidedly  on  the  in- 
crease. We  saw  several,  during  our  journey  across 
Siberia,  which  had  been  opened  recently.  The  physical 
exercise  equipment  —  the  jumping  horses,  climbing-poles, 
parallel  bars,  swings  and  so  forth  put  to  shame  the  normal 
run  of  American  and  British  rural  schools. 

Then  there  is  the  Realnaja  (the  German  Beahchule) ^ 
with  a  curriculum  of  history,  geography  and  mathematics, 
the  subjects  being  divided  into  their  physical  and  com- 
mercial aspects.  The  Realnaja  is  not  met  with  in  the 
average  village ;  it  occurs  chiefly  in  towns  and  big  villages. 
Attendance  is  optional  and  free. 

Next  comes  the  third  of  the  three  free  school  systems 
of  Siberia,  the  gymnasium  (the  gymnase  of  France), 
found  only  in  the  towns  and  cities.  History,  literature 
and  the  higher  mathematics  are  taught.  French  and 
German  are  voluntary;  English  cannot  be  taken.  Ger- 
man, by  the  way,  is  a  good  deal  the  most  common  foreign 
tongue  used  by  Russians  in  Siberia.  A  very  fair  knowl- 
edge of  it  is  possessed  by  almost  all  postmasters,  army 
oflficers,  government  officials,  mining  engineers  and  edu- 
cated men  and  women  in  all  walks  of  life.  French  and 
English  are  much  less  often  encountered.  But  to  return 
to  the  gymnasium. 

Latin  and  Greek  are  compulsory  and  are  rather  over- 
done, according  to  some  of  our  informants.  In  1880, 
Count  A.  Tolstoy,  cousin  of  the  literary  Leo  and  at  that 
time  Minister  of  Education,  became  obsessed  with  the  idea 


32  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

that  in  copious  doses  of  the  dead  language  classics  would 
lie  the  dissipation  of  the  Russian  Empire's  social  unrest, 
and  that  their  study  would  foster  a  spirit  of  conservatism. 
So  he  dealt  out  Latin  and  Greek  with  a  liberal  hand,  and 
the  rising  generation,  much  to  its  disgust,  still  has  to 
stagger  along  under  his  legacy. 

The  Kommerscheskaja  are  privately  owned  trade 
schools.  The  courses  of  mental  instruction  are  much 
easier  than  those  of  the  gymnasia.  They  occur  in  the  big 
towns  and  cities,  and  are  largely  filled  with  the  children 
of  well-to-do  Jews. 

In  the  national  free  schools  of  Siberia,  only  from  two 
per  cent,  to  five  per  cent,  of  the  attendance  is  permitted  to 
be  composed  of  Jewish  children.  That  is  little,  if  any, 
hardship  in  the  villages,  where  the  Jews  are  rarely  to  be 
found.  But  in  the  to"\vns  and  cities,  the  position  will  not 
right  itself.  Great  numbers  of  Jewish  lads  are  on  the 
waiting  list  of  every  school.  Prospects  are  bright  for  the 
Aaronsons  but  very  glum  for  the  Zalinskis,  as  the  authori- 
ties generally  fill  up  vacancies  alphabetically  by  taking 
the  first  batch  of  names  on  the  list.  However,  like  the 
disappointed  theatrical  super,  who  after  having  acted  as 
Xerxes  in  a  bankrupt  company,  the  alphabetical  division 
of  whose  assets  only  managed  to  get  as  far  as  Menelaus, 
refused  to  sign  on  again  in  any  other  capacity  than  that 
of  Achilles  or  Ajax,  the  wily  Hebrews  of  Irkutsk  and 
Tomsk  frequently  change  their  names  when  their  lads  be- 
gin to  go  into  knickerbockers  and  thus  avoid  the  expense 
of  having  to  send  them  to  private  schools. 

All  the  Siberian  schools,  free  and  otherwise,  are  well 
attended.  In  many  cases  to-day  they  have  to  work  on 
double  time  schedule,  detachments  of  the  same  class  being 
taught  during  two  or  three  different  periods  of  the  day. 
There  is  considerable  agitation  for  more  schools,  but  it  is 


Two  newsboys  of  Tomsk 


A  CITY  OF  OEGIES  AND  EDUCATION     33 

not  the  much  maligned  Russian  Government,  in  this  case, 
which  constitutes  the  opposition ;  it  is  the  'popes  or  village 
priests  of  the  Orthodox  Greek  Church. 

The  municipalities  of  Siberia  are  not  illiberal  in  their 
support  of  the  public  schools,  a  generous  percentage  of  the 
city  budget  going  to  the  maintenance  of  those  institutions. 
Irkutsk,  for  example,  appropriates  ten  per  cent,  of  the 
entire  income  to  this  purpose. 

All  pupils  in  the  government  schools  are  obliged  to  wear 
uniforms.  The  boys  have  dark  blue  suits,  gray  overcoats 
piped  with  blue  and  trimmed  with  brass  buttons.  The 
girls  wear  brown  frocks,  black  aprons  and  black  hats. 
The  last,  incidentally,  are  severely  plain  and  not  at  all 
conducive  to  the  general  good  looks  of  the  girls.  On  holi- 
days and  celebrations,  the  girls  put  on  white  aprons. 

The  city  of  Tomsk  used  to  have  a  theater,  a  fine  build- 
ing, but  it  was  burned  down  during  the  reactionary  riots 
of  1905,  when,  with  the  adjoining  ofiices  of  the  Trans- 
Siberian  Railroad,  it  was  fired  by  strikers  and  students. 
They  stoned  and  beat  the  railroad  and  theater  clerks  and 
employees  as  they  made  their  escape  from  the  blazing 
buildings.  Over  sixty  were  seriously  injured  by  missiles 
or  burned  to  death,  on  November  20th  of  that  ill-fated 
year. 

Small  stages  are  to  be  found  in  hotels  and  the  Engi- 
neers' and  other  clubs  of  the  city.  There  are  infrequent 
performances  by  traveling  companies  at  the  city  assembly 
hall.  Now  and  then  comes  a  dramatic  lion  from  faraway 
Moscow.  It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  Hamlet  and 
King  Lear  have  recently  been  played  and  that  they  met 
with  an  enthusiastic  reception.  No  German  opera  makes 
its  appearance  at  Tomsk.  Performances  run  chiefly  to 
Ibsen  and  the  leading  modern  Russian  and  German 
dramatists. 


34  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

Moving  picture  shows  are  plentiful  and  popular  in  mod- 
ern Siberian  cities,  and  Tomsk  is  no  exception.  All 
classes  of  the  community  attend  them.  Professor  Tovey 
told  us  that  he  considered  they  had  a  most  valuable  educa- 
tional influence  among  the  poorer,  illiterate  and  idealess 
classes. 

Tomsk  has  three  of  the  twenty  newspapers  Siberia 
boasts  —  two  dailies  and  a  weekly.  The  chief  daily  is 
Siberian  Life,  a  subscription  to  which  costs  only  seven 
roubles  a  year,  a  cent  a  day.  A  certain  number  of  copies 
are  sold  on  the  street  for  as  much  as  the  boys  can  get  for 
them,  which  is  generally  four  or  five  Tcopecks.  Both  dail- 
ies are  morning  papers.  If  any  particularly  appetizing 
bon  bouclie  of  news  comes  over  the  wires  during  the  day, 
it  is  struck  off  on  a  handbill.  These  enjoy  ready  sale  as 
"  Telegramma,"  by  street  newsboys.  You  pay  a  cent  for 
a  bare  announcement  of  four  or  five  lines. 

An  amusing  incident  in  connection  with  the  "  speshul 
extries  "  of  Tomsk  occurred  while  we  were  there. 

Early  one  morning  came  in  the  startling  report  that  the 
Russian  minister  at  Pekin  had  been  assassinated;  it  was 
at  the  time  of  the  Eusso-Chinese  crisis. 

One  of  the  papers  at  once  rushed  a  handbill  through  the 
press,  but  before  it  was  distributed,  came  the  official  de- 
nials from  Petersburg  and  Pekin.  In  keeping  with  the 
best  journalistic  traditions  of  the  Occident,  the  editor  had 
the  denials  printed  on  the  second  handbill.  Then  he 
called  all  the  newsboys  into  the  inner  office,  explained 
the  situation  with  the  utmost  candor,  handed  out  supplies 
of  each  bill  to  the  eager  lads,  and  told  them  to  run  the 
streets,  crying  "  Horrible  Assassination."  until  the  "  Hor- 
rible Assassinations  "  had  sold  out.  Then,  after  resting 
up    for    ten   minutes,    they   were   to  open    a   chorus    of 


A  CITY  OF  OEGIES  AND  EDUCATION     35 

"Startling  Sequel,"  and  proceed  to  sell  out  all  their 
"'  Startling  Sequels."     And  they  did. 

The  weekly  of  Tomsk,  Siberian  Truth,  is  alive  with 
enterprise.  Politically,  it  is  reactionary  in  tendencies, 
but  since  a  former  proprietor  shot  the  last  young  reporter 
whose  revolutionary  effusions  of  soul  led  to  an  entire  issue 
being  censored  out  of  existence,  its  political  utterances 
have  been  guarded. 

Siberian  Truth  is  strongly  anti-Semitic.  It  special- 
izes in  fearless  denunciations  of  Jewish  scandals,  with 
the  result  that  no  Hebrew  in  the  city  will  on  any  account 
miss  an  issue,  lest  he  may  not  find  himself  cognizant  of 
the  circumstances  attending  the  bringing  of  the  latest  lamb 
to  the  slaughter. 

Press  censorship  in  Siberia  ranges  from  merely  a  slight 
inconvenience  to  a  gross  tampering  with  the  right  of  fair 
editorial  comment  and  even  the  publication  of  blameless 
news  reports. 

One  cannot  help  admiring  the  audacity  of  a  recent  press 
censor  who  had  to  decide  what  was  good  for  the  120,000 
souls  of  Irkutsk  to  read  over  their  matutinal  rolls  and 
coffee.  One  night,  through  the  wires  bridging  some  thou- 
sands of  miles  of  desolate  Siberian  steppe,  came  the  news 
from  Moscow  of  the  failure  of  a  big  trading  company  of 
Kiev.  Now  the  censor  held  some  thousands  of  roubles' 
stock  in  that  company.  With  autocratic  indignation,  he 
blue-penciled  the  report  as  it  came  in  from  each  newspaper 
oflBce  —  and  next  morning,  bright  and  early,  he  disposed 
of  every  hopech's  interest  he  held  in  the  sinking  ship  of 
commerce,  to  his  unsuspecting  neighbors,  before  the  bad 
tidings  had  had  time  to  get  far  by  word  of  mouth  —  for 
of  course,  he  could  not  censor  the  tongues  of  the  angry 
newspaper  men. 


36  THKOUGH  SIBERIA 

In  proper  hands,  the  censorship  is  never  abused  and  is 
productive  of  very  little  friction  with  the  newspapers. 
When  the  paper  is  ready  to  go  to  press,  proofs  have  to  be 
sent  round  to  receive  the  censor's  signature.  He  rapidly 
runs  through  their  editorial  and  foreign  news  columns, 
and  a  few  minutes  later  they  are  returned  to  the  waiting 
assistant  editor,  or  some  such  responsible  member  of  the 
staff.  An  editor  of  standing  is  allowed  a  good  deal  of 
latitude  as  regards  the  insertion  of  "  stop  press  "  news  of 
importance,  received  after  the  censor  has  retired  for  the 
night,  and  very  often  the  friendliest  relations  exist  be- 
tween editor  and  censor.  Until  recently,  the  press  censor- 
ship of  Tomsk  was  vested  in  the  hands  of  Professor 
Semislikov,  the  principal  of  the  University. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  nook  or  cranny  of  Si- 
beria which  does  not  preserve  the  memory  of  some  great 
romance  or  romantic  tragedy,  but  Tomsk  makes  a  bold 
bid  for  priority  in  this  respect.  Her  modest  boast  is  that 
Alexander  I,  Tsar  of  All  the  Eussias,  passed  his  declining 
years  a  humble  hermit,  dwelling  in  a  little  log  hut  below 
the  Alexis  monastery.     The  story  runs  like  this : 

On  the  sudden  death,  in  1801,  of  his  father.  Tsar  Paul 
I,  Alexander  succeeded  to  the  throne,  inheriting  a  war 
with  France  that  during  his  reign  saw  the  great  raid  of 
Bonaparte,  whose  fire  scars  may  still  be  seen  at  Moscow. 
Trouble  piled  on  trouble.  Concentrated,  Eussia  might 
have  prevailed  in  her  struggles.  But  her  strength  was 
tapped  by  invasions  of  the  Swedes  to  the  north,  of  the 
Turks  to  the  south,  of  the  Austrians  to  the  west.  Yet 
Alexander  had  the  pluck  to  dream  of,  plan  for  and  hold 
intact,  a  vast  united  Eussian  empire.  Late  in  his  reign, 
disappointments  came  thick  and  fast,  with  such  sickening 
menace  that  he  failed  to  see  them  in  their  proper  perspec- 
tive.    He  could  not  bring  himself  to  realize,  as  posterity 


The  old  stockade  gateway  in  Omsk 


A 


The  heater  in  a  hotel  room  is  stoked  fmm  the  hallway 


A  CITY  OF  ORGIES  AND  EDUCATION     37 

has  realized,  the  larger  triumph  that  loomed  behind  the 
worrying,  petty  reverses. 

At  last,  worn  out  with  the  anxieties  of  battle  and  ad- 
ministrative fracas,  he  left  his  capital  and  went  down  to 
a  quiet  country  place  in  the  Crimea  to  rest.  At  Tagan- 
rog, so  men  believed,  he  died.  His  body  was  taken  to 
St.  Petersburg  and  entombed. 

But  Tomsk  claims  that  Alexander,  dejected  at  his 
failure  to  reach  his  ideals  of  peaceful  administration, 
secretly  abdicated,  and  had  the  remains  of  a  peasant  who 
had  died  of  rheumatic  fever  sent  to  Petersburg  for  the 
state  obsequies.  For  years,  the  old  Tsar  wandered 
through  the  villages  of  southern  Russia :  it  was  before  the 
days  of  photographs  and  emperor-hunts  instigated  by  en- 
terprising evening  newspapers,  you  must  recollect. 

There  was  notliing  to  lead  the  ignorant  peasants  to  sus- 
pect the  holy  man's  identity.  Presently  he  found  himself 
at  Tomsk,  at  that  time  only  a  collection  of  rude  log  cot- 
tages in  the  center  of  a  great  grain  reservation.  He  was 
given  a  little  wooden  hut  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  capped  by 
the  Alexis  monastery. 

There,  as  a  hermit,  lived  the  stranger.  He  crossed  his 
threshold  only  to  perform  some  act  of  charity.  His  kind- 
ness brought  him  great  renown  throughout  the  surround- 
ing country.  As  "  Theodore  Kuzmilch,"  he  was  visited 
by  hundreds  of  admiring  pilgrims.  He  used  to  nurse  the 
sick  and  bring  bread  to  the  hunger-stricken.  On  one  occa- 
sion, "  Theodore  "  nursed  a  cholera  patient  through  his 
illness,  when  no  one  else  in  Tomsk  dared  to  go  near  the 
dwelling  of  the  afflicted  man. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  when  the  benevolent  old  hermit 
died  in  1864,  a  public  fund  was  raised  to  preserve  his  hut 
and  raise  a  befitting  mausoleum  over  his  remains  in  the 
little  graveyard  of  the  monastery. 


402410 


38  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

Soon  afterward,  a  wave  of  intense  excitement  swept 
through  Tomsk.  A  Jewish  leather  merchant  of  the  town 
told  how  a  maid-servant  in  his  household  had  received  a 
letter  from  a  village  in  the  Crimea,  from  her  dying 
brother,  once  one  of  the  guards  at  the  retreat  where  Tsar 
Alexander  I  was  supposed  to  have  breathed  his  last. 
Some  years  previous  to  the  writing,  this  brother  had  sud- 
denly left  the  army  and  set  himself  up  on  a  very  snug 
farm,  with  plenty  of  costly  stock  and  fittings.  No  one 
had  ever  been  able  to  ascertain  how  he  had  come  into  the 
necessary  funds.  In  his  last  letter,  he  told  his  sister  that 
he  had  derived  his  fortune  for  having  held  his  tongue 
over  the  disappearance  of  the  Tsar  and  the  substitution  of 
the  peasant's  corpse. 

The  servant  girl  had  been  so  frightened  at  the  disclosure 
that  she  immediately  burnt  the  precious  letter.  Not  a 
fragment  of  it  remained.  She  was  seen  by  several  of  the 
leading  townsmen  of  Tomsk,  and  she  stuck  to  her  story. 
There  does  not  appear  to  have  been  any  incentive  for  her 
to  have  concocted  so  extraordinary  a  story  out  of  her  own 
inner  consciousness. 

Then  matters  took  another  dramatic  turn.  A  farmer 
living  fifty  miles  up  in  the  north,  happening  to  hear  of  the 
rumor,  came  down  to  Tomsk  and  stated  explicitly  that 
"  Theodore  Kuzmileh  "  had  once  told  him  of  his  former 
imperial  status,  swearing  him  to  secrecy. 

And  three  pilgrims  recollected  an  incident  that  in  the 
light  of  these  revelations,  took  a  new  significance.  One 
of  these  men  had  stirred  the  heart  of  the  old  hermit  with 
a  recital  of  brutal  injustice  at  the  hands  of  a  certain  mili- 
tary governor.  The  hermit  had  sprung  to  his  feet,  his 
eyes  flashing,  his  head  thrown  back.  Drawing  himself  up 
to  his  full  height,  he  crashed  his  fist  down  on  the  rude 


A  CITY  OF  ORGIES  AND  EDUCATION     39 

wooden  table,  and  cried,  "  Then  that  man  shall  be  re- 
moved." 

It  was  not  the  petulant,  grieved  manner  of  an  old  priest 
of  humble  estate.  It  was  the  imperial  wrath  of  a  great 
soldier  and  a  man  of  boundless  power,  a  man  accustomed 
to  his  word  being  law. 

To-day  Tomsk  is  quite  unanimous  in  its  belief  that  it 
is  honored  by  the  tomb  of  a  hermit  Tsar ;  and  in  Irkutsk, 
the  capital  itself,  the  general  consensus  of  opinion  is  the 
same. 

The  hut  that  sheltered  the  monarch  is  hidden  away 
from  the  street  by  a  high  board  fence.  Inside  another 
enclosure,  up  a  court  and  through  a  wicket  gate,  there, 
very  like  a  rustic  summer-house,  stands  the  little  two- 
roomed  log  structure,  nestling  under  the  broad  eaves  of  a 
protecting  shed.  Not  a  stick  has  been  changed  or  re- 
moved since  the  day  of  the  death  of  the  hermit  Tsar,  says 
the  pope  who  keeps  watch  on  the  spot. 

A  double-barred  door  in  a  dark  porch,  with  a  top  bar 
on  which  one  bumps  one's  head,  opens  on  a  tiny  hall  that 
in  turn  leads  to  the  room  so  famed  for  its  erstwhile  oc- 
cupant. 

In  one  comer  is  the  Tsar's  trestle  bed,  ascetically 
hard.  Here  Alexander  I  died.  By  it  is  a  shelf,  bearing 
ikons  presented  by  the  faithful.  The  walls  are  of  bare 
oaken  plank.  Eough-hewn  beams  support  the  roof. 
They  are  studded  with  scores  of  ikons  and  framed  reli- 
gious prints.  Candelabra  and  lamps  swing  before  them. 
By  the  little  window  hangs  a  censer,  half  filled  with  glow- 
ing charcoal.  Wreaths  of  artificial  flowers  are  here  and 
there,  contrasting  tawdrily  with  the  solemn,  candle-smoked 
countenance  of  the  ikons. 

The  most  interesting  features  of  the  room,  perhaps,  are 


40  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

the  several  portraits  of  Tsar  Alexander  I  that  hang  on  the 
walls.  Thej  show  him  as  a  young  man  in  his  prime,  and, 
again,  resplendent  in  military  uniforms;  and  the  portrait 
of  "  Theodore  Kuzmilch,"  painted  shortly  before  his  death, 
by  one  of  the  monks  of  the  Alexis  monastery.  The  re- 
semblance between  the  old  hermit  and  the  famous  Tsar 
is  quite  marked.  There  are  the  same  great  domed  fore- 
head, the  wide  brows,  the  tall  stature  and  the  broad  shoul- 
ders. 

As  Russian  shrines  go,  the  tomb  of  the  hermit  Tsar  is 
simple.  It  is  a  small  building  of  stucco  and  brick,  under 
the  shadow  of  the  monastery  church.  Graves  surround  it 
on  all  sides,  though  its  cross  rises  high  above  the  strange 
decorations  that  are  concomitants  of  Russian  burial 
grounds. 

In  the  center  of  the  mausoleum  stands  the  flat  tomb. 
Lamps  bum  upon  it,  and  on  the  window  sill,  the  morning 
we  were  there,  stood  an  amusing  contrast  with  the  pathetic 
romance  —  an  ugly  can  of  kerosene  for  replenishing  the 
memorial  lamps,  a  can  marked  with  the  superscription  of 
John  D.  Rockefeller's  family  business. 

One  evening  Mr.  Speight,  a  prominent  mines  agent  of 
Tomsk,  who  speaks  excellent  English,  asked  us  to  meet 
Colonel  Savlovski,  the  owner  of  the  biggest  stud  farm  in 
Siberia,  discoverer  and  concessionaire  of  the  new  Baikal 
oilfields,  extensive  coal  and  other  mines,  and  a  well  known 
personality  in  Siberia. 

A  judge  of  the  high  court  of  Tomsk  was  present.  H© 
was  anxious  to  know  if  tallow  candles  were  still  believed 
by  Americans  and  Britons  to  be  the  principal  foodstuff 
of  Siberian  society. 

We  were  offered  some  cigarettes  of  Turkestan  tobacco, 
roots  of  Maryland  stock  with  which  tentative  experiments 
are  being  made  much  after  the  manner  of  tobacco  raising 


A  CITY  or  OEGIES  AND  EDUCATION     41 

in  Ireland.  The  experiment  is  succeeding.  At  any  rate, 
a  good  deal  of  tobacco  is  being  produced,  though  we  found 
it  unusually  nasty.  The  Governjjient  has  fostered  the 
Turkestan  tobacco  industry  by  giving  growers  a  lease  of 
thirty  years'  freedom  from  duty,  but  no  exportation  is  yet 
allowed. 

We  fell  to  talking  of  the  stud  farm  and  horses  in  Si- 
beria. They  told  us  that,  on  the  passing  of  the  notorious 
Race  Track  Bill  a  few  years  ago  which  put  the  stopper  on 
all  serious  racing  in  New  York  State,  a  great  number  of 
valuable  American  race  horses  were  brought  over  to  Rus- 
sia where  they  have  been  much  admired. 

The  native  Siberian  horse  is  a  very  tiny  animal  as  com- 
pared with  our  mounts.  He  is  not  much  larger  than  a 
Mexican  burro,  has  a  shaggy  coat  and  is  very  sure-footed. 
We  found,  by  later  experience  with  these  little  beasts, 
that  they  make  excellent  mounts,  and  when  put  between 
the  shafts  can  drag  their  load  long  distances  through  snow 
and  ice  and  over  muddy  roads. 

"  A  popular  fallacy,"  the  Colonel  said,  "  is  that  Siberi- 
ans do  not  ride  horseback.  They  do.  In  Central  Siberian 
towns  and  along  the  railroad  zone  generally,  not  many 
equestrians  will  be  seen,  but  once  off  the  beaten  track,  you 
will  find  more  peasants  on  horseback  than  afoot  or  in  wag- 
ons. Riding  horseback  is  not  an  accomplishment  with 
them,  it  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  life.  Everybody 
rides,  rides  astride  —  babies  of  four  and  five,  their  elder 
sisters,  mothers  and  grandmothers.  Nor  is  horseback  rid- 
ing confined  to  the  peasants,"  he  continued.  "  The  better 
class  people  in  the  cities  go  in  for  the  sport." 

Later  in  our  journey,  at  Blagowestchensk-on-Amur,  we 
saw  girls  riding  every  day.  They  were  from  the  fash- 
ionable families,  and  they  too  rode  astride  and  rode  well, 
though  their  habits  would  have  caused  much  comment  in 


43  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

Central  Park.  To  detail  one  we  saw  —  she  "was  a  flaxen- 
haired  girl  of  about  twenty,  a  pretty  little  thing  with  rose 
cheeks.  She  wore  patent  leather  boots,  pale  pink  riding 
breeches,  and  a  jacket  of  emerald  green  with  tails  that 
floated  out  behind  her  as  she  cantered  along.  The  hat  we 
do  not  quite  recall. 

The  day  after  our  interview,  the  Colonel  invited  us  to 
sledge  down  to  his  farm  in  the  Salaiyeer  Mountains.  And 
so,  after  a  fortnight's  stay  in  Tomsk,  we  departed,  not 
without  some  regret,  for  whereas  Tomsk  has  suffered  losses 
that  Omsk  has  gained  of  late  years,  the  tone  of  the  city 
is  far  higher  and  more  cultured  than  the  tone  of  its  com- 
mercial competitor  to  the  westward. 


Chapter  IV" 

SLEDGING  SOUTH  TO  THE  SALAIYEEK 
MOUNTAINS.! 

I  LEFT  the  Trans-Siberian  line  at  Tootalskaia,  a  vil- 
lage a  few  hours'  journey  west  of  Taiga,  the  Tomsk 
junction  forty-eight  miles  below  the  city. 

They  brought  round  to  the  door  a  sledge,  not  one  of 
those  pretty  skate-runnered,  enameled,  picture-book  af- 
fairs that  glide  so  smoothly  up  and  down  the  streets  of 
St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  but  the  big,  shallow,  cross- 
country Siberian  sledge.  It  had  no  seat.  Its  runners 
were  a  pair  of  more  or  less  parallel  birch  poles,  just  plain 
wood.  More  crooked,  gnarled  branches  formed  the  floor. 
They  were  tied  together  with  odd  scraps  of  twine,  birch 
bark  and  horsehair  cord;  nails  would  jerk  loose  in  a  day 
or  two.  Among  the  tangled  branches  was  set  a  big  scal- 
lop-shell of  interwoven  willow  branches.  The  shell  was 
full  of  hay  and  straw.  In  you  crawled  and  sat  or  lay  at 
full  length  during  the  journey. 

There  were  two  horses,  a  puller  and  an  outrigger.  Both 
had  the  high  wooden  Russian  collar  towering  over  their 
necks,  three  bells  tinkling  from  the  painted  peak. 

We  dashed  through  the  village,  across  the  frozen  Tom, 
and  up  on  to  the  bare,  storm-swept  steppes.  It  was  a  deso- 
late run,  only  an  infrequent  sapling  of  birch  to  break  the 
monotony  of  the  snow-smothered  landscape.     The  track 

1  The  journey  to  the  Salaiyeer  Mountains  was  made  by  Mr.  Digby 
while  Mr.  Wright  was  at  Irkutsk. 

43 


U  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

or  "  road  "  was  merely  a  string  of  horse  hoof  marks,  with 
neither  bank  nor  hedge  nor  post  to  indicate  its  function. 
Once  we  passed  a  string  of  six  ponies,  tugging  laden 
sledges.  A  man  drove  the  first;  all  the  rest  followed, 
driverless,  at  regular  intervals. 

Wayside  incidents  were  few.  I  noticed  a  pair  of 
ptarmigan.  They  relied  on  the  perfection  of  their  pro- 
tective coloring  until  we  were  almost  upon  them,  and  even 
then  they  did  not  trouble  to  take  to  the  wing;  they  merely 
scuttled  back  to  the  shelter  of  a  patch  of  birch  scrub. 

Presently  we  came  in  sight  of  what  at  first  I  took  to 
be  a  trap  of  some  kind,  but  on  nearer  approach  I  found 
it  was  the  ribs  of  a  horse,  the  rest  of  the  body  —  what 
there  was  left  of  it  —  buried  under  a  slight  mound  of 
snow.  All  around,  the  snow  was  disturbed  by  the  tracks 
of  hundreds  of  clawed  feet;  a  red,  gnawed  leg  bone  lay  a 
few  yards  away. 

Sunset  that  evening  was  very  beautiful.  The  unclouded 
blue  sky  paled  to  a  delicate  sea-green,  and  etiolating,  threw 
a  primrose  sheen  across  the  snows,  a  sheen  that  shed  a 
cloak  of  cream  over  the  slim  trunks  of  the  wan  birches. 

At  dusk  we  came  to  the  village  of  Popayretchnaia,  and 
drove  to  the  hut  of  peasant  Vintofkin.  His  guest  apart- 
ment was  a  tidy  little  room  adjoining  the  general  living, 
working,  sleeping  and  dying  room  of  the  establishment. 
It  was  carpeted  with  a  rough  homespun  cloth  of  the  texture 
of  sacking,  patterned  in  squares  of  vivid  hue.  Big  wooden 
tubs  of  flowering  shrubs  stood  around  the  walls.  As  I 
stripped  off  my  furs  and  snow  boots,  the  toothless  old 
grandmother  brought  in  the  very  latest  baby  for  my  ap- 
probation, and  made  me  welcome.  I  had  difficulty  in  get- 
ting any  food,  a  cheery  "  Haven't  any,"  meeting  my  every 
suggestion.  Eventually,  however,  I  managed  to  obtain 
some  lumps  of  grisly,  unappetizing  mutton,  too  tough  to 


O. 


>> 

u 


u 

C3 

C 

O 


SLEDGING  TO  SALAIYEER  45 

eat;  a  plate  of  rancid  brined  cabbage,  and  some  excellent 
brown  bread  and  tea. 

To  Beriorzvor  we  started  early  next  morning.  It  was 
a  cold  run  over  a  very  bad  trail.  You  would  scarcely 
credit  how  bad  that  trail  was  for  the  major  part  of  its 
thirty  miles.  There  are  plenty  of  holes  that  run  to  three 
and  four  feet  in  depth,  dropping  sheer,  like  our  municipal 
gas  and  water  trenches  at  home.  Now  and  then  you  come 
into  a  sort  of  snow  model  of  a  rough  day  off  the  coast  of 
Maine  —  east-west  waves  and  north-south  waves  raging 
one  with  another  in  a  veritable  welter  of  hummocks  and 
hollows  and  crumbling  crests.  As  we  came  in  sight  of 
one  of  these  appalling  storm-spots,  the  loutish  youth  who 
drove  turned  round  with  a  delighted  grin,  and  immediately 
proceeded  to  lash  his  horses  into  a  frenzy. 

With  a  crash  that  flung  both  of  us  and  my  suit  case  a 
couple  of  feet  into  the  air,  we  would  land  at  the  foot  of 
a  steep  ditch.  On  dashed  the  horses,  while  the  cosmos 
seemed  riven  with  thunderbolt  and  earthquake.  Now  the 
suit  case  was  leaping  at  me,  now  it  sprang  into  the  lap 
of  the  driver.  Now  it  was  the  driver  who  went  sprawling 
on  his  back ;  now  it  was  I  —  but  generally  it  was  both  of 
us. 

Arrived  at  length  at  Beriorzvor,  the  food  problem  again 
came  to  the  fore.  It  was  no  use  exhibiting  money.  The 
log  hut  was  a  double-storied  structure  with  four  rooms, 
the  most  imposing  residence,  if  one  of  the  dirtiest,  in  the 
village,  which  was  of  some  size.  Yet  I  was  simply  met 
with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  and  a  "  Haven't  any,"  when 
I  named  any  simple  foodstuff.  I  managed  to  get  three 
eggs,  but  they  were  proffered  raw,  and  on  asking  that  they 
might  be  boiled,  the  good  woman  brought  me  a  cup  of 
warm  water  and  aj)peared  to  think  that  the  situation  was 
then  relieved.     But  fortunately  black  bread  and  a  few 


46  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

thumb-marked  scraps  of  frozen  butter  made  their  appear- 
ance. 

The  whole  family  trooped  in  and  watched  my  every 
mouthful  with  the  frank  interest  one  exhibits  at  a  freak 
show.  The  grandmother  of  this  household  was  very  strict 
with  her  commissariat.  She  kept  all  food  and  best  clothes 
—  everything  bundled  up  together,  a  plate  of  butter  and 
a  paper  of  sugar  wedged  in  between  a  couple  of  crumpled 
blouses  and  even  more  intimate  garments  —  in  a  big  iron- 
bound  chest,  gaudily  decorated  with  colored  stencils  of 
tin.  When  she  had  deposited  the  remains  of  my  meal  in 
the  chest,  she  locked  it  with  an  immense  key ;  locked  away 
this  key,  in  turn,  in  a  smaller  chest;  locked  the  smaller 
chest  and  deposited  the  key  in  her  pocket.  It  altogether 
took  away  any  after  slurs  that  I  might  have  been  inclined 
to  cast  on  the  scant  meal.  I  felt  that  great  honor  had  been 
done  me  by  my  having  been  presented  with  the  freedom 
of  these  carefully  hoarded  contents  of  the  treasure-chest. 

It  was  a  cold  run  to  Tarasova.  How  monotonous  these 
assertions  sound  to  you  —  and  how  inadequate  to  me ! 
During  the  first  ten  minutes  of  each  stage,  just  warmed 
by  a  seat  near  a  glowing  cottage  stove  and  bountiful  liba- 
tions from  a  steaming  samovar,  I  enjoyed  to  the  full  the 
exhilarating  dash  of  the  fresh  horses,  the  snow  spray  that 
flew  from  their  heels,  the  bouncing  about  in  the  hay,  the 
checkered  flicker  of  the  pale  sun  as  we  flashed  by  the 
trackside  birches,  the  shouts  of  the  driver,  the  snatching 
up  of  a  long-thonged  whip  and  the  lashing  out  at  the  fierce, 
gaunt,  wolfish  dogs  that  i-ushed  from  every  yard  and 
chased  us  out  of  sight  of  the  village. 

Then  the  cold  began  to  strike  through  a  six  inch  layer 
of  warm  garments.  To  get  to  me  it  had  to  penetrate  a 
couple  of  fur  rugs,  some  inches  of  hay,  a  borrowed  sheep- 
skin greatcoat,  a  fur  coat,  a  wool-lined  shooting  jacket,  a 


SLEDGING  TO  SALAIYEER  47 

warm  tweed  coat  and  vest,  a  woolen  shirt  and  thick  camel- 
wool  "underwear.  But  it  did  it,  and  came  to  stay.  After 
the  first  third  of  a  thirty-mile  stage,  I  might  have  been 
clad  in  silken  pajamas  for  all  the  warmth  I  could  muster. 
Moisture  gathered  on  my  glasses  and  instantly  froze,  put- 
ting their  utility  out  of  action.  It  was  not  so  much  the 
actual  thermometer  reading  that  made  matters  so  bad,  but 
rather  the  keen,  strong  wind  that  drove  incessantly  across 
the  shelterless  steppes. 

We  passed  one  little  birch  copse  on  this  stage.  A  pair 
of  bullfinches  were  hopping  and  twittering  among  the 
twigs.     It  was  a  very  welcome  break  in  the  monotony. 

At  Tarasova,  late  in  the  afternoon,  I  was  driven  to  the 
hut  of  Bobareekin  and  received  by  a  young  girl  who  was 
spinning  flax,  and  her  small  brother,  with  the  tails  of  his 
shirt  fluttering  free  around  him.  He  was  a  solemn,  fair- 
haired  little  fellow,  who  curled  himself  up  on  an  upper 
bed  shelf,  affectionately  nursing  a  chicken.  He  was  de- 
lighted with  a  distorting  mirror  I  gave  him.  While  he 
played  with  it,  his  sister  went  for  his  mother,  and  his 
mother  sent  out  for  female  neighbors.  The  mirror  was 
passed  from  hand  to  hand  amid  shrieks  of  laughter.  Then 
it  was  taken  down  the  street  to  be  exhibited  elsewhere. 
It  made  a  great  hit  in  that  pathetically  toyless  region. 

The  Bobareekins  felt  that  something  must  be  done  to 
mark  the  occasion,  so  they  brought  in  a  great  stone  jar 
of  delicious  wild  strawberry  jam,  which  with  new  black 
bread  and  tea  made  a  very  welcome  change  in  the  Spartan 
simplicity  of  the  dietary  of  these  parts.  Then  I  started 
off  on  the  stage  to  Brookhanovor. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  desolation  of  that  run.  We 
passed  no  trees,  no  bushes,  not  a  rock  nor  a  knee-tall  weed 
to  recall  a  bygone  summer.  ISTorth,  south,  east  and  west, 
not  a  dark  speck  was  to  be  seen  this  side  of  the  horizon. 


48  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

Mile  after  mile  after  mile  of  smooth,  trackless  snow.  The 
old  man  drove  standing,  now  and  again  crying  out  an  en- 
couragement to  his  horses.  I  felt  the  cold  more  than  ever, 
and  lapsing  into  a  half-frozen  lethargy,  neglected  to  draw 
my  head  tortoisewise  into  my  upturned  astrachan  collar. 
Presently  the  old  man  found  me  out,  and  stopped  the 
horses.  I  could  not  catch  the  drift  of  his  angry  exclama- 
tion, but  he  told  me  in  dumb  show  to  rub  my  nose  and 
ears.  He  stood  over  me  till  they  were  glowing  and  I 
had  wrapped  myself  up  properly  again.  Then  he  rear- 
ranged our  furs,  and  off  we  went. 

A  snowbound  Siberian  village,  in  the  full  light  of  day, 
looks  about  as  desolate  and  uninviting  a  human  haunt  as 
one  can  well  imagine,  but  entering  at  night,  after  a  long 
day's  sledging  against  the  wind,  its  cheeriness  is  over- 
whelming. Every  little  window  blazed  out  its  warm  wel- 
come, rays  of  orange  penciling  the  dim,  pale  blue  of  the 
twilight  snow.  Here  and  there  I  caught  the  glint  of  a 
brass  samovar  on  a  table,  a  knot  of  people  sitting  around 
it.  Cascades  of  sparks  poured  from  chimneys.  Men's 
voices  rose  to  accompany  the  brayings  and  bleatings  of  an 
accordion.  Cheerful  haunts  of  men,  like  riches,  are  purely 
relative,  and  I  found  Brookhanovor  a  very  pleasant  spot 
that  night. 

We  stopped  at  a  two-story  log  cottage,  and  here  I  putl 
up.  Supper  was  a  banquet ;  soup,  potatoes  and  meat  — 
scarcely  edible  meat  —  bread  and  milk.  There  was  no 
guest  room  here,  and  I  went  to  bed  with  the  rest  of  the 
family,  men,  women  and  children. 

Going  to  bed  in  a  Siberian  peasant's  hut  is  quite  a  sim- 
ple matter.  You  take  a  blanket  or  two,  cocoon  yourself 
in  them,  lie  down,  on  the  floor  and  go  to  sleep  there  and 
then.  There  are  no  bedrooms,  no  beds.  You  do  not  dis- 
robe.    Men,  women  and  children,  cats  and  dogs,  chick- 


SLEDGING  TO  SALAIYEER  49 

ens,  ducks  and  turkeys,  lie  do^vn  side  by  side.  The  last 
person  to  turn  in  stacks  pine  logs  into  the  stove,  to  its 
fullest  capacity.  Then  he  extinguishes  the  lamp,  and  an- 
other day  is  over.  Sometimes  there  will  be  a  bench,  a 
pair  of  chests,  a  niche  in  the  wall,  or  something  like  that, 
which  is  utilized  as  a  couch;  and  sometimes  the  grand- 
father or  grandmother  of  the  household  exercises  the 
prerogative  of  sleeping  on  the  flat,  whitewashed  top  of  the 
brick  stove,  hazardous  proceeding  as  that  may  seem.  But 
in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  you  all,  with  a  fine  democ- 
racy, share  the  floor. 

I  found  that  the  thin  blanket  with  which  I  was  provided 
did  not  do  much  toward  softening  the  hard  brick  floor,  and 
noticing  a  pile  of  hay  in  the  corner,  a  couple  of  ducks 
resting  on  it,  I  asked  if  I  might  take  some  to  make  myself 
a  couch.  The  family  put  the  matter  up  for  debate. 
There  was  a  noisy  discussion.  The  ducks  woke  up,  snug- 
gled more  comfortably  into  the  hay,  and  surveyed  me  with 
frigid,  unblinking  hostility.  For  a  while,  one  of  the 
women  seemed  to  take  my  part,  but  eventually  she  capitu- 
lated and  a  unanimous  decision  was  given  against  me. 
The  ducks  tucked  their  heads  under  their  wings  and  wad- 
dled off  to  the  land  of  Nod,  while  I  had  to  resign  myself 
to  the  bricks. 

When  I  set  eyes  on  the  twelve-year-old  who  came  round 
to  the  door  with  the  sledge  next  morning,  to  drive  me  the 
final  stage  of  my  journey  to  the  "  Konski  Zabot  Savlovski/' 
I  guessed  there  would  be  developments  if  we  had  anything 
like  a  bad  trail  ahead  of  us.  And  sure  enough,  before  we 
had  gone  a  couple  of  versts,  there  was  trouble. 

Navigating  a  Siberian  cross-country  sledge  has  several 
points  in  common  with  the  navigation  of  a  sailing  dingy. 
In  both  of  them  you  have  constantly  to  be  on  the  watch 
for  a  bad  heel  over  to  leeward,  when  a  capsize  can  be 


50  THKOUGH  SIBERIA 

avoided  only  by  a  sudden  flinging  of  one's  weight  against 
the  opposite  gunwale.  And  the  sledge  driver  of  tender 
years,  like  the  young  yachtsman,  has  an  unholy  tendency 
toward  tying  the  sheet  and  letting  her  rip.  Until  one  is 
an  adept,  it  is  rather  a  nuisance  to  manipulate  the  out- 
rigger horse's  rein  in  addition  to  those  of  the  leader ;  and 
yon  tie  it.  Things  go  very  well  on  a  clear  trail,  but  a 
sudden  swerve  on  the  part  of  the  leader,  to  avoid  a  way- 
side stump  or  a  passing  sledge  he  fears  to  shave^  brings 
swift  disaster. 

That  is  how  it  came  about  that,  our  outrigger  slipping 
and  forming  the  central  pivot  of  a  pair  of  compasses,  the 
leader  dashed  round,  weaving  about  him  a  cocoon  of  tan- 
gled and  snapped  harness,  the  sledge  —  upside  down  — 
trundling  on  until  we  managed  to  crawl  out  of  the  medley 
of  hay  and  rugs  and  baggage,  brushed  the  snow  from  our 
necks  and  eyes  and  arose  to  deal  with  the  situation.  Ap- 
propriately enough,  our  upset  took  place  just  outside  the 
lonely  little  hillside  graveyard  of  Brookhanovor. 

At  length  we  skirted  a  fringe  of  pine  woods,  the  first 
foliaged  wood  I  had  yet  encountered  on  the  journey.  As 
we  pulled  slowly  up  the  hill,  it  was  delightful  to  hear  the 
soft  rising  and  falling  cadence  of  the  wind  as  it  soughed 
gently  through  the  swaying  branches.  Then  out  we  drew 
again,  into  the  teeth  of  a  keen,  cutting  blast  that  filled  the 
air  with  whirling  snow. 

We  passed  a  great  church  bell  of  brass  picked  out  with 
silver,  being  hauled  south  on  a  sledge,  from  the  faraway 
Trans-Siberian  Railroad  to  the  village  of  Manetza,  a  day 
or  two's  journey  yet  into  the  foothills  of  the  Altai. 

'Now  we  were  coming  to  the  fringe  of  the  great  steppe, 
and  the  mountains  began  to  close  in  around  us.  In  place 
of  the  dreary,  featureless  seas  of  snow  that  had  stretched 
to  the  horizon,  rose  tier  after  tier  of  pine-clad  hills,  not 


SLEDGING  TO  SALAIYEER  51 

rugged  and  abrupt,  but  slowly  and  surely  rising,  ridge  by 
ridge,  from  the  hobbledehoydom  of  ungainly,  overgrown 
hills  to  the  serene,  majestic  contours  of  mountainhood. 
Through  a  tiny  village,  over  a  frozen  creek  and  up  into 
a  thicket  of  swamp  willows  we  wound  this  way  and  that, 
imtil  at  last  no  glimpse  of  steppe  remained  in  view,  and 
we  had  penetrated  far  into  a  tangle  of  narrow  combes 
among  the  mountains  of  Salaiyeer. 

Our  valley  narrowed,  and  the  forest  swallowed  up  the 
undergrowth  of  the  swamp  and  began  to  press  closely  in 
upon  the  track.  There  was  no  longer  room  for  the  out- 
rigger; at  every  other  step  he  was  plunging  kneedeep  in 
the  soft  snow  or  crashing  through  the  bushes.  We  called 
a  halt,  and  harnessed  him  ahead  of  the  leader. 

Eor  nearly  an  hour  we  passed  along  this  narrow  track 
through  the  forest.  Animal  footprints  were  everywhere 
on  the  snow  —  ermine,  hare,  wolf,  with  now  and  then  a 
line  of  big  pads  that  one  might  be  excused  for  attributing 
to  bear;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  tracks  of  a  wolf  pack. 
Siberian  wolves  run  always  in  single  file,  in  spite  of  the 
scattered  mobs  beloved  of  picture-book  illustrators,  and 
though  each  beast  paces  in  the  pads  made  by  those  ahead, 
the  passing  of  a  pack  naturally  tends  to  enlarge  the  marks. 

At  length  we  came  out  on  the  rim  of  a  deep,  treeless 
bowl  in  the  hills.  There,  on  the  far  side,  lay  a  group  of 
dark-gabled,  snow-covered  roofs,  the  "  Konski  Zahoi  Sav- 
lovshi." 

I  presented  my  letters,  and  Tombeark,  trainer  in  chief 
of  the  Savlovski  trotting  horses,  made  his  appearance  and 
gave  me  a  cordial  welcome.  A  few  years  ago,  he  had 
passed  three  years  on  a  big  stud  farm  in  the  States,  at 
Lexington,  Ky.,  so  he  spoke  very  fair  English.  He  could 
also  chat  to  you  in  French,  Polish,  Armenian,  Greek  and 
sundry  Tartar  dialects  of  the  curious  Mongol  tribes,  the 


52  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

Tunghizes,  the  Kirghizes,  the  Booriats,  and  the  rest,  which 
drift  hither  and  thither  over  the  steppes  and  forests  of 
Siberia. 

After  lunch,  we  went  down  to  the  pacing  track,  at  the 
flank  of  which  is  a  ditch  swamp  of  willow  bushes.  We 
hunted  hares.  Once  disturbed  by  the  dogs,  they  run  in 
a  two  mile  circle.  They  start  up  and  rush  away  from  a 
certain  thicket.  You  light  a  cigarette,  move  a  few  feet 
away  and  keep  still ;  and  ten  minutes  later,  the  little  beasts 
again  make  their  appearance.  No  matter  how  many  dogs 
are  on  their  track,  they  keep  their  circular  course  as  surely 
as  do  the  trotting  horses  on  the  race  track  near  by;  they 
never  break  straight  away  across  country. 

I  was  introduced  to  the  dogs.  Most  of  them  were  named 
after  "  ze  nation  of  sports,"  as  Trainer  Tombeark  cour- 
teously, if  ambiguously,  termed  us.  Don,  the  well-be- 
haved Irish  setter;  Daisy,  the  cowering  little  fox-terrier 
with  her  duck-chasing  instincts  perpetually  warring  with 
her  fear  of  the  vengeful  open  hand;  and  Lady,  with  a 
most  unladylike  zest  for  chivying  young  fillies. 

Over  a  tea  of  rusks  and  honey,  at  which  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  estate  joined  us,  I  was  eagerly  asked  for 
tidings  of  civilization.  What  were  Edison's  latest  doings  ? 
What  had  he  invented  now?  Do  women  really  dare  to 
trust  themselves  in  aeroplanes  ?  And,  above  all,  how  were 
the  Canadians  taking  their  recent  annexation?  (This 
was  shortly  after  the  threatened  annexation  scare  engin- 
eered by  Champ  Clark,  and  the  prevalent  belief  in  the 
countryside  around,  said  Tombeark,  was  that  America  had 
filched  Canada.) 

Tombeark  fell  to  discussing  the  American  girl.  I 
asked  him  how,  as  a  Eussian,  he  had  been  struck  by  the 
dusky  negroid  belles  of  Kentucky.  He  did  not  approve 
of  the  looks  of  the  white  damosels  of  America,  but  he 


The  Savalovski  stud  farm  in  the  Salaiyeers 


?^?n^'»^iiSt 


A  simple  windlass  is  erected  over  the  gold  mine  shaft 


SLEDGING  TO  SALAIYEEE  53 

added  flatteringly  that  there  were  some  "  not  bad-looking 
fillies  "  among  the  lady  negroes.  He  spoke  highly  of  the 
northern  beauties  of  Liverpool,  which  he  visited  on  his  way 
back  to  Russia  from  Lexington. 

"  Plenty  good  woman  for  wife  zere,"  he  concluded,  pen- 
sively shaking  his  head. 

As  we  sat  over  our  cigarettes,  I  gave  Tombeark  one  of 
those  india-rubber  toy  beetles  with  inflated  bodies,  ex- 
plaining its  utility  for  backing  up  an  indignant  claim  for 
a  second  glass  of  beer,  without  an  additional  payment. 

He  passed  it  on  to  the  superintendent,  translating  in 
Russian. 

"  Don't  you  want  it  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Ah,  verra  good  for  womens,"  he  replied,  with  the  air 
of  one  who  is  making  a  sacrifice  in  a  noble  cause,  adding 
that  the  superintendent  had  a  wife  at  home  and  would 
duly  terrify  her  with  his  new  acquisition. 

We  met  again  at  dinner  that  evening.  The  end  of  the 
table  looked  like  a  well  stocked  bar;  it  carried  nine  bot- 
tles of  mixed  spirits  and  wines.  After  three  or  four  pre- 
liminary glasses  of  vodha,  we  attacked  a  dish  of  lobster. 

"  His  back  tail  is  best,"  shrewdly  observed  Tombeark. 
We  passed  on  to  rounds  of  Moscow  sausage  and  tongue, 
boiled  very  tender,  and  fried  potatoes.  There  was  a 
pause.  Then  the  young  cook  appeared  in  the  doorway, 
and  with  nervously  clas})ed  hands,  gave  rein  to  a  tale  of 
woe.  Tombeark  translated.  The  girl,  it  appeared,  was 
a  new  cook ;  her  predecessor  had  departed  only  a  few  days 
before,  and  this  was  the  first  occasion  of  her  skill  being 
put  to  test.  We  ought  to  have  had  mashed  potatoes  with, 
our  tongue,  and  the  fried  potatoes  with  the  dish  of  pirou- 
sJihies  to  come.  So  nervous  had  she  been  at  the  prepara- 
tion of  her  first  repast,  that  this  grave  error  had  been 
made.     However,  she  was  absolved,  and  departed  to  pre- 


54  THEOUGH  SIBEKIA 

pare  the  rest  of  the  meal  which,  by  the  way,  did  not  seem 
to  suffer  by  her  agitation. 

Now  and  again  Tombeark's  English  failed  him,  and  he 
leaned  upon  cosmopolitan  gatherings  from  the  tongues  of 
Erance  and  Germany  and  his  own  land.     As  witness: 

"  He  give  not  sick  tete  "  (applied  to  our  second  bottle 
of  Madeira)  ;  "  Take  you  not  citronen  avec  voire  chai?  " ; 
and  "  Strawberry  garden  he  live  im  Wald  hier  "  (that  is 
to  say :  "  Some  of  our  wild  strawberries  that  one  can  find 
in  the  woods  hereabouts  are  as  big  as  the  cultivated  gar- 
den varieties.") 

I  awoke  to  find  a  beautiful  morning.  The  wind  had 
died  down  for  a  while,  and  the  thermometer  showed  only 
sixteen  degrees  of  frost.  Tombeark  gave  me  a  huge  coat 
of  half-inch  felt,  with  a  big  hood,  and  pulling  it  on  over 
my  furs,  I  entered  the  sledge  with  him  and  drove  off  for 
the  village  of  Salaiyeer. 

The  first  few  miles  lay  through  the  agricultural  lands 
of  the  12,000-acre  Savlovski  farm,  most  of  it  being  given 
up  to  the  raising  of  oats  for  the  horses. 

We  saw  many  hare  tracks,  especially  along  by  the  trail, 
for  the  little  beasts  come  up  to  feed  on  the  wisps  of  hay 
and  grains  of  corn  that  drop  from  passing  sledges.  There 
were  plenty  of  blackcock  about,  and  we  noticed  a  flight 
or  two  of  bullfinches  and  an  occasional  fox  track.  Not 
a  single  log  hut  was  in  sight  all  the  way  to  Salaiyeer,  a 
distance  of  over  seventeen  miles.  Twice,  in  passing  laden 
strings  of  sledges,  we  drove  a  trifle  too  far  out,  and  had  our 
horses  plunging  up  to  the  withers  in  the  soft,  deep  snow, 
which  necessitated  a  general  turn  out  and  an  unharnessing. 

A  few  versts  before  Salaiyeer  the  pines  gave  place  to 
cedar,  which  gave  the  landscape  a  much  bleaker  aspect. 
A  bitter  wind  sprang  up  from  the  southwest,  whirling 
snow  on  its  wings.     In  a  few  moments  our  fingers,  feet 


SLEDGING  TO  SALAIYEER  55 

and  legs  were  throbbing  with  the  pain  of  the  cold  in  spite 
of  our  heavy  clothing. 

We  passed  a  bank  of  excavated  gravel  at  the  foot  of  a 
frozen  glen.  Tombeark  pointed  it  out  as  a  placer  gold 
working.  The  driver  lashed  up  the  horses,  and  rounding 
a  bare  hill  with  not  a  tree  to  break  its  softened  contours, 
we  swept  into  sight  of  Salaiyeer,  a  mere  cluster  of  dark 
triangular  gables  hinting  at  the  presence  of  human  habita- 
tion among  the  irregular  mounds  of  snow. 

Salaiyeer  is  built  on  the  exposed  flank  of  a  small  moun- 
tain overhanging  a  gorge  through  which  a  keen  wind  is 
eternally  sweeping  up  from  the  Altai;  the  village  is  situ- 
ated in  a  sort  of  gigantic  draught.  In  summer,  when  the 
neighboring  valleys  are  parched  with  fierce  heat,  Salaiyeer 
is  delightfully  cool.  But  in  winter!  Tombeark  said  it 
is  one  of  the  very  coldest  villages  in  southern  Siberia ;  I 
saw  no  reason  to  doubt  it.  The  cold  is  not  a  matter  of 
temperature  pure  and  simple,  of  thermometer  readings. 
The  wind  is  the  culprit. 

It  is  practically  always  snowing  there,  from  late  Sep- 
tember to  mid-May.  The  snow  accumulates  to  an  extra- 
ordinary depth:  some  of  the  village  streets  are  entirely 
snowed  in,  level  and  higher  than  the  roofs  of  the  log 
houses.  Every  street  is  a  succession  of  steep  little  snow 
hills.  Coming  in  from  the  wild  country-side,  up  the 
streets  of  Salaiyeer  reminds  one  of  a  splashful  spurt 
through  the  big  surf  breakers  entailed  in  making  a  land- 
ing on  an  ocean  beach.  Half  the  houses  were  snowed  clean 
up  to  the  eaves.  An  unobstructed  front  door  was  a  rarity. 
Generally  doors  and  yard  gates  were  to  be  approached 
only  through  deep,  clean-cut  clefts  in  the  packed  snow, 
with  the  surface  towering  over  your  head. 

We  put  up  at  a  substantial,  two  story  cottage  that  is 
utilized  by  visitors  from  the  Savlovski  estate.     With  its 


56  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

starting-place  on  the  roof  over  the  room  in  which  I  slept, 
boys  had  made  a  long  and  leisurely  toboggan  slide  to 
the  far  side  of  the  street.  At  another  upper  window,  it 
was  rather  disconcerting  to  come  face  to  face  with  cows 
and  pigs,  wandering  unconcernedly  in  the  upper  ether. 

A  meal  was  prepared  and  we  sat  down  to  a  samovar, 
libations  of  vodka,  frozen  white  bread  with  a  woolly  taste, 
and  a  metal  bowl  containing  lumps  of  tough  ham. 

The  two  intercommunicating  rooms  of  the  cottage  were 
cheerfully  furnished  with  bright  and  clean  fittings.  The 
walls  were  whitewashed  and  many  large  pots  of  flowering 
shrubs  in  bud,  castor  oil  plants  and  geraniums  gave  a 
pleasant  contrast  to  the  desolation  outside  the  double  win- 
dow panes.  There  were  two  ways  of  getting  upstairs. 
You  could  come  up  the  ladder  from  the  stable,  to  a  little 
landing,  and  then  enter  the  dining-room  through  swing 
doors,  or  you  could  come  up  from  the  kitchen,  through 
a  trapdoor  which  brought  you  out  directly  under  the  mas- 
sive table,  all  among  the  legs  and  feet  of  whoever  happened 
to  be  sitting  there.  About  half-a-dozen  of  us,  from  a 
white  haired  old  man  to  a  little  boy  of  nine,  sat  down  to 
lunch.  At  the  conclusion  of  a  meal  in  Siberia,  it  is  cus- 
tomary for  the  hostess,  without  leaving  her  seat,  to  rinse 
the  tea  glasses  with  a  jet  of  warm  water  from  the  sam- 
ovar, and  dry  them  with  a  cloth.  Misunderstanding  my 
request  for  more  tea,  one  of  the  girls  set  about  washing 
my  glass,  till  Tombeark  came  to  my  rescue.  Then  he 
passed  his  own  glass  to  be  refilled,  adding  with  a  laugh 
that  he  had  told  her  not  to  make  any  mistake  over  it,  for 
Siberians  hold  to  an  omen  predicting  grim  poverty  for  the 
man  who  asks  for  more  tea  after  his  glass  has  once  been 
cleansed. 

After  lunch,  T  put  a  new  spool  of  films  in  my  kodak. 
The  peasants  were  immensely  interested  in  the  operation. 


SLEDGING  TO  SALAIYEER  57 

That  my  vest  pocket  camera  was  genuine  and  could  take 
real  pictures,  the  grandfather  flatly  refused  to  believe.  I 
made  the  little  boy  a  gift  of  a  box  of  those  irritating 
"  safety  matches  "  sold  by  the  toyshops,  matches  with  the 
heads  merely  dipped  in  dark  brown,  paint.  Tombeark  ex- 
plained the  significance  of  "safety"  and  there  was  much 
merriment.  Presently  little  Nikoli  was  sent  across  the 
street  to  humbug  an  irascible  neighbor,  but  the  attempt 
failed,  for  the  neighbor  merely  surmised  that  the  matches 
were  damp  and  bundled  Master  Nikoli  off  the  premises. 

The  sledge  was  now  made  ready,  and  we  drove  round 
to  the  big  bungalow  of  the  local  superintendent  of  mines. 
On  the  way  we  passed  a  metal  statue  of  Tsar  Alexander 
II,  the  liberator  of  the  serfs,  erected  in  1894  by  the  grate- 
ful peasants  of  the  village. 

The  superintendent,  a  short,  bearded  man  in  the  dark 
blue  uniform  of  the  Russian  mining  engineer,  received  us 
cordially  and  chatted  for  some  time  on  the  mineralogy  of 
the  neighborhood.  Then  he  said  he  was  ready  to  take  me 
down  to  the  placer  gold  mines. 

We  entered  our  sledges  and  bowled  ofi  down  the  hillside 
for  a  couple  of  versts.  Here,  in  a  dried-up  creek  bed,  lay 
the  placer  mines  where  pay  dirt  was  being  excavated. 

The  scene  was  not  spectacular.  You  saw  a  few  mounds 
of  gravel,  a  ramshackle,  open-fronted,  little  hut,  and  three 
small  holes  in  the  snow,  edged  with  planks  —  at  home 
you  would  have  taken  it  for  a  desultory  repairing  of  drains. 

The  shafts  were  forty,  thirty-eight  and  thirty-five  feet 
deep.  A  windlass  straddled  the  top  of  each.  The  open- 
ings were  less  than  five  feet  square,  and  you  could  see 
that  the  interiors  of  the  shafts  were  stoutly  timbered. 
From  the  foot  of  each  shaft  branched  out  a  short  tunnel; 
from  here  the  pay  dirt  was  coming.  Twenty  men  were 
at  work,  and  about  eleven  sledge  loads  of  dirt  were  being 


58  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

excavated  a  day.  Each  load  was  at  once  taken  off  to  the 
washing  creek  at  Gavrielovsk,  where  the  interesting  part 
of  the  work  took  place. 

All  of  the  mines  of  Salaijeer  are  cahinetski  —  the  per- 
sonal property  of  the  Tsar,  ex  officio,  a  part  of  the  Tsar's 
great  Altai  estates.  As  such,  the  mines  are  leased  out  to 
companies  and  private  individuals,  ten  per  cent,  of  the 
total  output  being  liable  to  sequestration  for  the  Tsar's 
private  purse.  Human  nature  being  notoriously  frail  and 
the  Tsar  being  too  busy  nowadays  to  come  around  in  person 
for  his  dues,  the  full  ten  per  cent,  is  not  often  taken.  Offi- 
cially, the  cahinetski  superintendent  of  mines  is  empowered 
to  take  only  five  per  cent.,  or  even  three  per  cent.,  should 
the  mining  operations  be  "  experimental."  Hence  the 
size  of  your  tax  depends  in  large  measure  on  your  success 
in  persuading  the  cahinetski  superintendent  that  your  ef- 
forts are  merely  "  experimental."  You  find,  as  a  bad 
man  at  Irkutsk  told  us,  that  you  can  afford  quite  a  lot 
of  "  experimental "  plant  and  methods  on  a  really  rich 
holding,  if  keeping  a  few  industrious  men  to  play  with 
those  weird  machines  lifts  a  five  per  cent,  tax  on  gross 
earnings  from  your  annual  budget. 

The  Salaiyeer  workings  are  much  exhausted  and  pro- 
duce only  about  fifteen  pud  a  year  now;  a  pud  is  thirty- 
two  pounds.  Some  of  the  rich  Lena  workings  in  the  north 
produce  about  600  pud  a  year.  All  gold  mined  here- 
abouts has  to  go  to  the  cahinetski  assay  laboratory  at  Bar- 
naoul,  the  headquarters  of  the  Altai  estates.  The  gold 
comes  in  hither  from  the  company  tenants  of  the  Tsar. 
The  concessionaire  company  does  not  itself  mine  the 
precious  metal:  it  could  not  find  any  peasants,  however 
poorly  educated  and  poverty-stricken,  who  would  enter  its 
services.  The  peasants  will  not  work  for  a  master.  They 
would  deem  it  merely  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  toward 


SLEDGING  TO  SALAIYEER  59 

the  return  of  serfdom.  So  the  company  goes  to  the  peas- 
ant miners  and  offers  to  buy  all  the  gold  they  can  procure 
in  its  workings.  The  only  restriction  is  that  the  com- 
pany's oflScial  shall  oversee  the  actual  shaft  sinking  and 
shoring-up  —  for  the  men  are  notoriously  slovenly  in  their 
excavating  and  lax  in  the  taking  of  proper  precautions 
against  a  cave-in  —  and  that  it  shall  have  a  man  on  the 
spot  at  the  washing  sluices,  to  see  that  none  of  the  workers 
steals  a  nugget.  The  peasants  are  all  independent.  They 
choose  their  own  foreman,  and  each  day's  finds  are  di- 
vided among  themselves  in  equal  shares.  The  man  who 
has  been  leading  the  laden  sledge  of  dirt  from  the  shafts 
to  the  creek  takes  as  much  as  the  man  who  has  found  a 
valuable  nugget. 

Every  ten  pounds  or  so  of  gold  dust  in  winter,  and,  of 
course,  bigger  quantities  in  summer,  when  operations  are 
less  restricted  by  the  intense  cold,  take  the  long,  bleak 
journey  across  the  wilds  to  Barnaoul.  The  gold  is  packed 
in  stout  wooden  boxes  and  handed  over  to  the  postmaster. 
It  travels  democratically  with  any  other  parcels  that  hap- 
pen to  be  going  its  way,  and  it  has  no  special  guard.  There 
are  only  the  driver  of  the  sledge  and  the  usual  pair  of 
armed  mail  guards.  The  Siberian  mail  sledge  travels  day 
and  night,  stopping  only  for  change  of  horses  every  thirty 
or  forty  miles.  It  would  be  the  simplest  thing  in  the 
world  for  two  or  three  armed  men  to  lay  a  night  ambush, 
kill  the  unsuspecting  guards  and  go  off  with  gold  to  the 
value  of  thousands  of  dollars.  Yet  I  was  assured  that 
such  an  ungentlemanly  thing  had  never  entered  the  heads 
of  the  Siberians.  The  superintendent  of  mines  of  Salai- 
yeer  had  never  heard  of  a  case.  Mr.  Speight  of  Tomsk 
told  us  that  he  had  made  many  long  and  lonely  journeys 
with  heavy  gold  consignments  and  had  never  had  any  ap- 
prehension of  trouble.     And  this,  mind  you,  in  a  land 


60  THROUGH  SIBERIA' 

where  there  are  no  police  courts,  only  a  few  dummy  police- 
men, a  murder  a  day  in  several  towns  and  the  memorial 
crosses  of  murdered  wayfarers  popping  up  by  the  roadside 
with  menacing  monotony.  The  ruffians  of  Siberia  are 
great  sticklers  for  etiquette. 

The  only  gold  trouble  in  Salaiyeer  occurred  at  the  close 
ox  the  Russo-Japanese  war.  A  tattered  band  of  a  score 
of  soldiers,  penniless,  their  boots  gaping  at  the  toes,  cast 
off  without  pay  by  their  humane  commanding  officer,  strag- 
gled into  the  village  one  morning.  They  went  to  the 
house  of  the  superintendent  of  mines,  with  a  request  for 
a  little  money  with  which  to  keep  themselves  alive.  They 
had  heard  that  there  was  a  big  gold  consignment  up  there 
at  the  moment.  At  first,  assistance  was  refused  them,  and 
the  poor  fellows  very  naturally  took  the  refusal  to  heart. 
They  made  a  fuss. 

These  soldiers  had  fought  through  a  dangerous  cam- 
paign, at  a  wage  that  a  ISTew  York  office-boy  would  refuse. 
They  had,  time  and  again,  jeopardized  their  lives  for  their 
Tsar;  and  he,  in  the  person  of  his  delegate,  their  officer, 
had  embezzled  their  pay  and  turned  them  adrift  into  the 
Siberian  winter.  Behind  the  frail  plank  walls  of  that 
bungalow  were  sacks  of  gold,  gold  that  belonged  to  the  Tsar 
and  was  destined,  perhaps,  to  be  poured  into  the  lap  of 
a  frivolous  little  Moscow  ballet  girl  —  for  the  Russian 
Imperial  Ballet  is  maintained  out  of  the  Tsar's  cabinet's 
percentages. 

However,  the  superintendent  had  the  good  sense  to  send 
out  100  roubles  to  them,  and  the  menace  blew  over. 

We  were  back  in  the  village  before  four  o'clock,  and 
there  was  nothing  to  do  until  next  day.  I  read  and  re- 
read all  the  correspondence  in  my  pockets;  and  then,  to 
my  delight,  I  found  a  tiny  thumbnail  edition  of  "  A  Mid- 
summer-Night's Dream "  in  the  lining  of  my  shooting 


.-■^■-r~--:&^' 


•! 


-^3 

a. 


m 


It 


< 


Pi 


N 


o 
so 


2 
o 


SLEDGIKG  TO  SALAITEEE  61 

jacket.  Tombeark  had  never  seen  so  small  a  book  before 
—  it  measured  about  an  inch  and  a  half  square  —  and  he 
eagerly  dipped  into  it.  The  family  wanted  some  of  it 
translated,  and  he  hit  upon,  of  all  passages, 

"  Hermia:  O  cross.     Too  high  to  be  enthralled  too  low. 
Lysander:  Or  else  misgraffed  in  respect  of  years." 

Tombeark  had  a  stout  heart  and  quite  a  fair  knowledge 
of  English  of  a  kind,  but  he  quailed  at  trying  to  get  the 
gist  of  these  sentiments.  The  work  of  converting  the  peas- 
ants of  Salaiyeer  to  an  appreciation  of  "  A  Midsummer- 
Night's  Dream "  is  awaiting  some  braver  pioneer. 

Presently  came  supj)er-time,  and  Tombeark  predicted 
that  we  should  have  cutlets.  Vain  hope !  They  turned 
out  to  be  the  usual  greasy,  tough  meat-balls  so  beloved  of 
the  Siberians.  However,  he  had  routed  out  a  bottle  of 
passable  Crimean  claret,  and  the  black  bread  was  whole- 
some, so  we  might  have  fared  worse. 

After  taking  neat  claret,  Tombeark  and  the  patriarch 
of  the  family  took  claret  in  their  tea.  By  and  by  there 
arose  an  excited  dialogue  between  them.  The  silver-haired 
man  shook  off  his  years  and  grew  as  vivacious  as  his  grand- 
son. They  were  talking,  said  Tombeark,  of  the  real  bene- 
fit of  Tsar  Alexander  II's  charter  of  liberty  to  "  ze 
sklaves,"  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  which  had  just  been 
celebrated.  The  patriarch  had  been  in  Salaiyeer  when 
the  charter  was  issued  and  recollected  the  wild  rejoicings 
with  which  it  had  been  greeted.  There  had  been  much 
cruelty  on  the  part  of  the  masters,  he  said,  much  unjust 
treatment  and  brutal  floggings.  A  serf  then,  now  he  held 
200  acres  of  good  farm  land. 

Then  Tombeark  fell  to  talking  of  New  York.  He  had 
been  twice  to  Brooklyn,  and  he  had  no  desire  to  go  there 
again.     He  spoke  with  glee  of  going  out  to  bathe  in  the 


62  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

ocean,  and  of  the  delights  of  Coney  Island.  He  had  en- 
joyed the  "  elevated,"  but  had  been  more  struck  with  the 
racing  expresses  of  the  subway,  down  in  the  bowels  of  the 
earth.     That  had  been  "  ver'  goot,  ver'  goot." 

The  old  man  told  us  more  of  Salaiyeer.  Forty  years 
ago,  at  the  time  of  the  great  gold  boom,  it  had  been  a  flour- 
ishing town  with  many  thousand  settlers.  Even  a  few 
years  ago  there  had  been  3,000  settlers.  With  the  incur- 
sion of  all  these  men,  big  shops  were  established.  That 
accounted  for  our  wine.  Cases  of  fine  wine  are  still  ma- 
turing, unsalable,  in  the  cellars  of  what  have  now  dwindled 
to  the  usual  squalid  little  Siberian  village  stores.  In 
those  days,  miners  often  made  forty  or  fifty  roubles  a  day 
—  $20  or  $25  —  and  drank  most  of  it  away  in  vodka  at 
night.  To-day  the  village  numbers  only  some  600  men, 
most  of  whom  are  miners.  The  glamor  of  the  gold  mine 
is  alike  the  world  over.  Salaiyeer  prefers  to  hang  on  at 
its  washing  sluices,  hoping  against  hope,  half-starving  and 
in  rags  and  tatters,  rather  than  make  the  regular  and  com- 
fortable wage  of  a  small  farmer. 


ChAPTEB  V: 

PAYING  CALLS 

WE  awoke  at  six.  The  room  was  pleasantly  warm 
and  the  sun  streamed  through  the  double  win- 
dows, throwing  pretty  checkered  patterns  across 
the  home-woven  carpet,  Smilax  trailed  up  the  white- 
washed plank  walls;  with  the  pale  oak  furniture  uphol- 
stered in  orange,  the  tout  ensemble  was  very  pleasing  and 
very  un-Siberian.  But  outside  the  wind  howled  around 
the  gables  and  one  heard  the  sparrows  scuttling  for  shel- 
tered corners. 

As  I  rubbed  the  sleep  from  my  eyes,  entered  the  huge 
bulk  of  Tombeark,  asking  for  my  passport.  A  day  or  two 
ago,  he  explained,  the  chief  of  police  of  Salaiyeer,  running 
short  of  hay,  had  sent  over  three  empty  sledges  to  the 
Savlovski  farm,  with  a  request  that  a  load  be  furnished 
for  each.  He  had  said  nothing  to  the  drivers  about  pay- 
ment. It  was  a  bold  bluff  at  official  intimidation  —  but 
the  sledges  were  sent  empty  away,  their  driver  entrusted 
with  messages  that  needed  considerable  Bowdlerization 
before  delivery. 

Now  the  chief  had  heard  of  my  foreign  invasion  and 
wished  to  convince  himself  of  its  perfect  propriety.  It 
was  a  delicate  situation  for  Tombeark.  He  was  ordered 
to  bring  round  the  passport  in  person.  On  his  return,  he 
entertained  me  with  a  vivid  word  picture  of  the  great  man 
leaning  back  in  his  chair,  grasping  the  passport  firmly  in 

both  hands  and  intently  studying  its  every  feature.     He 

63 


64  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

had  studied  it  for  ten  minutes  though  he  knew  not  a  word 
of  English.  Then,  with  evident  chagrin  that  he  had  not 
a  set  of  big,  dignified  vise  stamps  like  those  of  the  police 
of  Tcheliabinsk  and  Tomsk,  he  dipped  his  pen  in  ink  and 
proceeded  to  append  a  codicil  stating  that  on  March  28 
this  man  had  turned  up  in  Salaiyeer,  and  that  owing  to 
an  unfortunate  lack  of  evidence  that  might  warrant  his 
detention  as  a  criminal,  he  had  been  permitted  to  make 
his  stay  and  depart  unmolested. 

"  So  far,  so  good,"  I  replied.  "  l^ow  what  is  the  pro- 
gram for  to-day  ?  We  are  going  to  see  the  gold-washing, 
aren't  we  ?  " 

"  Ah !  There  ees  too  mooch  wind,"  protested  Tom- 
beark.  He  went  on  to  explain  how  cold  and  unpleasant 
a  day  it  would  be.  Why  not  lounge  about  the  house,  post- 
poning the  expedition  until  the  morrow  ? 

"I'm  sorry  about  the  weather,"  I  answered;  "but  I 
shall  have  to  go  all  the  same."  I  had  nothing  to  read,  and 
the  prospect  of  an  utterly  uneventful  day  had  no  charms 
for  me. 

"  Eet  ees  holy  day,"  he  added  with  a  laugh;.  "  Men  no 
work."  It  had  been  a  holy  day  yesterday,  yet  had  we 
found  sundry  sinners  at  work  at  the  excavating  shafts,  so 
I  decided  to  risk  finding  a  similar  degree  of  heathen  deg- 
radation down  at  the  washing  sluices.  I  said  that  we 
would  go,  holy  or  unholy  day. 

After  breakfast,  our  old  peasant  host  showed  me  an  odd 
print,  yellow  with  age,  a  wood  engraving  of  a  seaport 
scene  dated  in  the  seventeen  seventies  or  eighties.  Un- 
fortunately I  have  lost  my  note  of  its  engraver.  Sixty 
years  ago,  before  the  serfs  had  been  freed,  explained  our 
host,  that  print  had  hung,  framed,  upon  the  wall.  It 
had  been  brought  from  western  Eussia  by  his  parents. 
Shortly  afterwards  an  Englishman,  passing  through  Sala- 


PAYING  CALLS  65 

ijeer,  had  happened  to  put  up  at  this  little  house.  He  was 
very  struck  with  the  print,  and  had  offered  fifty  roubles 
for  it.  The  old  man,  a  mere  youth  then,  had  his  full  share 
of  peasant  shrewdness,  and  refused  to  part  with  it. 

Now  Salaiyeer  is  well  off  the  beaten  track  of  Siberia 
even  to-day :  sixty  years  ago,  with  no  railroad  nearer  than 
Germany,  isolated  in  the  center  of  thousands  of  miles  of 
wolf-ravaged  forest,  it  must  have  been  one  of  the  last  spots 
in  the  world  to  expect  an  English  traveler.  So  far  as  I 
am  aware,  there  are  no  records  extant  of  Englishmen  pene- 
trating to  this  sequestered  part  of  Asia  in  the  Victorian 
fifties.  Who  could  the  mysterious  print  collector  have 
been? 

Another  interesting  wayfarer  had  perched  for  a  night 
or  two  in  this  little  whitewashed  room,  on  his  flight  through 
the  wilds  to  more  happy  climes.  At  the  close  of  the  Rus- 
so-Japanese war,  a  young  Russian  officer  had  ridden  on 
horseback  all  the  way  from  Vladivostok,  on  the  Pacific, 
to  Petersburg.  It  took  him  nearly  two  years.  On  his 
safe  arrival,  he  had  sent  our  host  his  j^hotograph,  a  hand- 
some, bemedaled  Cossack,  who  smiled  down  from  a  plush 
frame  on  the  wall. 

Downstairs  I  noticed  a  sewing  machine  of  a  famous 
American  make.  It  is  extraordinary  the  way  this  enter- 
prising firm  in  question  has  exploited  its  machine  in  Si- 
beria. There  is  scarcely  a  log  cottage  in  the  whole  of 
northern  Asia,  be  it  ever  so  many  days'  lonely  sledge  jour- 
ney from  a  town  or  railroad,  which  has  not  one  of  them. 

We  bade  farewell  to  our  host,  and  set  out  in  a  brisk 
snowstorm  to  Gavrielovsk.  Here  we  called  on  the  cah- 
inetski  mines  overseer  for  the  district.  He  was  out,  but 
his  wife,  a  handsome  though  rather  untidy  lady  in  a  lace 
negligee,  gave  us  a  warm  welcome.  She  sent  her  pretty 
little  girl,  who  was  dressed  in  a  long  Holland  smock,  to 


66  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

get  me  some  Jcvas,  a  drink  made  from  fermented  mare's 
milk,  that  is  in  great  demand  throughout  the  Eussias.  It 
is  like  flat  and  slightly  sour  cider,  and  assuages  thirst; 
but  it  is  scarcely  a  beverage  that  you  would  go  out  of  your 
way  to  imbibe  on  its  own  merits. 

Mrs.  Nankin,  told  a  curious  tale  about  her  house,  a  com- 
modious one  story  log  bijngalow.  It  was  a  death  house 
for  pets.  'No  animal  or  bird  could  be  kept  there.  Poul- 
try and  ducks  never  lived  more  than  three  weeks  or  so, 
and  every  one  of  the  many  dogs  and  cats  she  had  tried 
to  keep  had  gone  mad  within  a  few  weeks.  At  that  very 
moment,  a  lady  who  had  been  a  member  of  the  household, 
was  at  Tomsk  undergoing  the  Pasteur  treatment  for  mad 
dog  bite.  Her  husband  was  inclined  to  attribute  the  trou- 
ble to  the  proximity  of  a  long-disused  silver  smelting 
works  a  few  yards  away.  He  thought  that  the  poison, 
of  the  silver  tainted  the  water.  Yet  no  human  being  had 
experienced  ill  effects  on  that  account. 

Our  hostess  told  us,  too,  of  a  fox-terrier  in  the  house, 
which  had  brought  up  a  bereaved  kitten  along  with  its 
puppies.  She  spoke  of  the  terrible  howling  of  the  wolves 
at  dusk,  along  the  edge  of  the  pine  wocds  that  skirted  the 
hill  behind  the  bungalow.  I  asked  Tombeark  to  enquire 
whether  they  were  to  be  heard  at  this  season  of  the  year. 

"  No ; '  in  ze  fall,"  he  replied.  "  ISTow  zey  are  mar- 
ried." 

Mrs.  N'ankin  asked  us  to  come  back  to  supper,  at  the 
end  of  the  afternoon,  and  she  saw  us  off  to  examine  the 
gold  sluices,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  down  the  creek.  Here 
there  were  thirteen  washing  sluices,  though  as  it  was  win- 
ter, only  three  were  working.  All  operations  were  in  ac- 
tive progress. 

First  the  newly  arrived  sledgeload  of  pay  dirt  from  the 
Salaiyeer  shafts  is  emptied  into  clay  pockets,  such  as 


PAYING  CALLS  67 

bricklayers  use  for  mixing  their  lime.  Then  water  is 
poured  in  and  a  man  chops  up  the  mess  with  a  hoe,  into 
the  consistency  of  thick  soup.  Every  now  and  then,  he 
ladles  some  out  on  to  the  five-foot  by  three-foot  plate  of 
iron,  sieved  with  rows  of  small  holes,  that  is  laid  on  the 
plank  bed  of  the  sluice  in  a  narrow  channel  of  the  creek. 
Two  men  with  hoes  then  beat  it  about,  crushing  every 
lump  of  undissolved  gravel.  When  all  has  been  "  washed  " 
or  dissolved  in  the  current  of  running  water  that  careers 
down  the  sluice,  the  water  is  dammed,  and  the  iron  sieve 
plate  lifted,  displaying  to  view  a  few  handfuls  of  black- 
ish sand  that  has  sunk  through  the  perforations  during 
the  washing.  It  is  among  this  sand  that  the  tiny  specks  of 
precious  metal  lurk. 

A  man  squats  at  the  foot  of  the  sluice,  a  little  hoe-end 
in  one  hand,  a  stiff  scrubbing  brush  in  the  other.  Deftly 
he  disturbs  the  sediment,  to  which  a  small  quantity  of 
quicksilver  has  been  added,  disturbs  it  in  long  semi-cir- 
cular sweeps  that  draw  away  the  pebbles  and  the  coarser 
sand,  leaving  at  last  a  child's  handful  of  dark  sand.  This 
is  taken  up  on  a  tiny  iron  shovel  the  size  of  your  thumb. 
Glancing  keenly  into  it,  you  spy,  among  the  quicksilver,  a 
few  specks  of  very  minute,  glittering  brassy  stuff  —  thq 
gold. 

It  was  fascinating  to  stand  watching  the  whole  process, 
from  the  unloading  of  the  sledge  to  the  appearance  of 
the  "  find  " —  less  bulk  of  gold  than  a  pin's  head.  It  is 
rather  disillusioning.  Most  of  us  get  into  the  habit  of 
picturing  gold-mining  as  a  trade  of  strutting  about  in  a 
romantic  red  shirt,  now  and  again  striking  the  ground 
with  a  pick  and  nonchalantly  taking  up  the  nugget  as 
big  as  a  walnut  that,  of  course,  is  exposed  to  view. 

What  do  you  think  these  Salaiyeer  gold  miners  earn 
during  the  winter  months  ?     They  work  like  horses  from 


6S  THKOUGH  SIBEEIA 

dawn  to  dusk,  and  the  division  of  the  gold  pans  out  at 
twenty  kopecJcs  or  ten  cents  a  day !  Things  are  certainly 
a  little  better  in  the  summer,  and  a  few  years  ago  the 
men  were  making  five  and  seven  roubles  —  $2.50  or  $3.50 
—  a  day.  They  exist  on  past  memories,  and  no  one  knows 
what  may  come  up,  one  fine  morning,  from  the  foot  of 
the  shafts  on  the  hill.     Gold  miners  are  very  human. 

ISTuggets  are  rarely  found  on  the  Salaiyeer  workings. 
When  they  do  appear,  they  never  run  larger  than  a  rasp- 
berry. A  day  or  two  before  my  visit,  a  nugget  weighing 
half  an  ounce  had  been  found,  but  it  had  contained  a 
considerable  amount  of  quartz  alloy.  I  told  the  men  of 
the  finds  at  Klondike,  the  enormously  rich  pockets  up  the 
shores  of  Bonanza  Creek.  As  Tombeark  translated,  their 
jaws  dropped  in  amazement,  and  they  ejaculated  a  chorus 
of  admiring  "  Ahs."  It  takes  a  Siberian  miner,  slaving 
away  in  the  icy  water  at  eight  cents  a  day,  to  appreciate 
the  Bonanza  properly.  They  asked  if  foreigners  were 
allowed  there  and  when  I  said  "  Yes,"  two  or  three  dropped 
their  shovels  and  for  a  moment  I  thought  that  the  gold 
miners  of  Salaiyeer  were  going  to  ask  me  there  and  then 
to  escort  a  personally  conducted  party  up  to  Dawson 
City.  However,  I  assured  them  that  they  would  do  better 
by  staying  at  home,  working  up  on  their  own  rich  Lena 
placers,  or  even  persevering  with  their  sluices  here,  with 
the  ever-present  possibility  of  five  roubles  a  day,  that  would 
make  them  the  envy  of  many  a  Klondike  prospector. 

When  the  little  shovel  containing  the  clot  of  gold-bearing 
quicksilver,  the  size  of  a  quarter,  was  handed  back  to  the 
sluice  foreman,  it  was  carefully  taken  down  an  inclined 
pathway  through  the  snow  into  a  dark  underground  hut 
roofed  with  turfs  and  snow.  Here  a  man  crouched  over 
a  pile  of  smoking  embers,  heating  the  shovel.  In  five 
minutes  the  quicksilver  had  been  consumed,  leaving  only 


PAYING  CALLS  69 

a  pincii  of  mealy,  dull,  crumbling  gold.  From  an  old 
lobster  tin,  tlie  miner  produced  a  small  pair  of  brass 
scales  and  weights.  With  great  care,  he  got  the  accurate 
■weight,  tilted  the  dust  into  a  tiny  envelope,  penciled  on 
the  weight,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  company's  official, 
immediately  dropped  the  envelope  through  the  slot  of  a 
black  can,  the  lid  of  which  was  heavily  sealed. 

There  is  always  an  inspector  of  the  leasing  company 
at  the  washing  sluices,  but  his  mission  is  rather  a  sinecure. 
The  inspector  cannot  be  at  more  than  one  sluice  at  a. 
time,  and  the  men  have  ample  opportunity  for  pocketing 
all  the  nuggets  they  are  lucky  enough  to  find.  Nuggets 
are  forbidden  to  be  sold  at  the  mines  but  may  be  pur- 
chased of  the  cdbinetski  assay  office  at  Barnaoul. 

Eeturning  to  Mr.  Nanls:in's  bungalow,  we  were  met  by 
his  private  sledge,  which  he  had  courteously  sent  to  carry 
us  back.  After  chatting  for  a  few  minutes,  we  went  in 
to  partake  of  the  dinner  Mrs.  Nankin  had  prepared. 

There  were  zdkouslms  of  three  kinds  of  fish,  pickled 
red  cabbage,  salted  white  cabbage  and  caviare.  With 
the  zdkouskas  or  liors  d'oeuvres  we  tossed  down  about  half- 
a-dozen  nips  of  strawberry  vodka,  and  a  glass  or  two  of 
a  Crimean  white  wine.  Macaroni  soup,  the  inevitable 
Russian  meat  rissoles  with  mashed  potatoes;  pink  blanc- 
mange, hvas,  tea,  more  vodka,  preserved  raspberries,  rolls 
of  white  sweet  bread  —  Fransooski  kJileh  —  and  Moscow 
sweetmeats  in  paper  wrappings,  followed. 

Superintendent  Nankin  began  to  talk  of  mines.  He 
spoke  of  coal  and  iron  in  huge  quantities,  whole  mountains 
of  it,  and  news  of  fresh  deposits  coming  in  every  week. 
Like  other  men  we  met  subsequently,  he  cried  for  rail- 
roads, railroads,  railroads!  What  can  you  do  with  your 
mountains  of  coal  and  iron  ore  when  you  are  many  days' 
sledge  journey  from  the  Trans-Siberian,  when  every  load 


70  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

of  iron  ore  or  coal  would  take  over  a  week  to  get  to  a 
distributing  railroad?  He  asked  why  American  and 
British  capitalists,  and  the  investors  who  argue  over  their 
three  and  four  per  cent.,  do  not  persuade  the  Tsar's  min- 
istry to  let  them  open  up  Siberian  railroads,  railroads 
that  shall  be  leased  to  them  for  fifty  years  and  then 
bought  in,  as  going  concerns,  by  the  Eussian  Government. 
There  is  no  question  of  inadequate  returns  or  of  jeopard- 
izing capital.  There  is  no  mystery  about  the  great  mineral 
deposits  of  southern  Siberia.  Foreign  mining  engineers 
are  free  to  come  and  inspect  to  their  heart's  content,  and 
even  to  superintend  testing  experiments  in  person,  by  the 
simple  expedient  of  obtaining  dummy  claim-stakers  or 
concessionaires  of  Eussian  nationality. 

We  took  our  departure  at  dusk.  Once  the  village  had 
been  passed,  the  track  was  swallowed  up  by  gloomy  pine 
woods.  It  was  a  delightful  and  all  too  short  six  verst 
run  to  Goorievsk,  now  in  the  heart  of  the  pine  forest, 
now  skirting  a  wide  ridge.  The  snow  was  blue  in  the 
waning  light  of  the  dusk;  a  few  yards  away  all  objects 
faded  off  into  vague,  bizarre  shapes  looming  through  a 
bluish  mist  of  dim,  refracted  light.  But  overhead  the 
world  was  full  of  odd,  drifting  silhouettes,  a  riot  of 
gnarled  limbs  and  pine  crests.  Cutting  through  this  wasp- 
waist  of  the  great  Goorievsk  forest  was  not  without  its 
spice  of  adventure.  The  woods  here  are  alive  with  wolves. 
No  one  will  drive  a  string  of  ponies  or  a  herd  of  cattle 
home  from  Goorievsk  to  Gavrielovsk  after  sunset,  and 
there  had  been  several  cases  that  winter  of  wolf  packs 
actually  giving  chase  to  belated  sledges.  On  this  account, 
while  you  do  not  have  much  difficulty  in  getting  a  driver 
to  take  you,  in  the  evening,  from  Gavrielovsk  to  Goorievsk 
—  which  is  downhill  —  you  cannot  get  transported  up  the 
hill  from  Goorievsk  to  Gavrielovsk  for  love  or  money. 


PAYING  CALLS  71 

All  too  soon  we  came  to  Goorievsk,  a  little  town  of 
2,000  people,  lying  in  a  bowl  of  the  hills,  an  important 
iron-smelting  center,  though  painfully  handicapped  by  the 
cost  of  transporting  its  heavy  product  through  the  long 
journey  north  to  the  Trans-Siberian  Eailroad. 

The  streets  were  in  an  awful  condition,  simply  a  chain 
of  evil-smelling  ponds  and  noisesome  morasses.  We  put 
up  at  the  zemsthaia  Tcvatura,  the  public  guest  house  of  the 
place.  A  mob-capped,  flat-hipped  woman  received  us,  ar- 
rayed after  the  slovenly  manner  of  a  backwoods  farmer's 
good  lady,  but  representing  the  height  of  fashion  among 
the  short-skirted,  bare-footed,  beshawled  moudjik  women. 
Both  Tombeark  and  myself  were  consumed  with  an  en- 
viable thirst,  after  our  long  course  of  vodkas  and  salt  fish 
at  Gavrielovsk.  She  of  the  mob  cap  brought  us  heavy 
earthenware  pitchers  of  cold,  creamy  milk,  which  one 
ladled  out  with  a  big  polished  oak  spoon.  We  disposed 
of  about  a  gallon,  and  then  turned  bedward. 

We  breakfasted  next  morning  off  a  dish  of  buckwheat 
griddlecakes  and  melted  butter,  cheese  and  petit  heurre 
biscuits,  the  best  fare  obtainable.  Then  we  embarked 
once  more  and  undertook  the  thirty-five  verst  drive  back 
to  the  Savlovski  farm.  Tombeark  explained  that  the 
Savlovski  farm  lands  ran  eight  versts  over  hill  and  plain, 
to  the  south.  Oats  and  hay  were  raised  chiefly.  Straw- 
berries and  cucumbers,  he  added  in  reply  to  my  query, 
could  be  raised  only  in  sheltered  gardens;  the  hillsides 
were  too  bleak  for  them. 

I  passed  the  afternoon  reading  and  napping:  a  long 
morning  drive  in  the  Siberian  cold  makes  one  sleepy  for 
the  rest  of  the  day.  At  four  o'clock,  Tombeark  joined  me 
for  rusks  and  honey  and  tea, 

"  The  honey  is  produced  on  our  own  farm,"  he  said. 
"  At  the  height  of  the  summer  we  have  a  hundred  hives 


72  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

in  operation."  A  big  tract  of  sheltered  meadowland  was 
sown  entirely  with  honey-giving  flowers.  When  the  bee 
season  came  on,  the  old  peasant  who  slept  on  guard  in  the 
hall,  under  the  chipmunk's  swing  cage,  acted  as  second- 
in-command.  The  chief  bee  expert  was  a  younger  man 
from  a  small  village  in  the  north.  For  six  months  a  year 
he  did  nothing ;  the  other  half  of  the  year  he  tended  bees. 

Presently  we  went  through  the  paddocks  and  stables 
of  the  stud  farm.  The  one-year-olds  were  very  nervous, 
shaggy  little  beasts,  but  if  one  kept  still  for  a  few  moments, 
there  came  a  tiny  prod,  a  touch,  another  touch,  a  moist, 
quivering  nose  over  one's  shoulder,  another  nose  tapping 
the  small  of  the  back.  They  gathered  round  and  nosed 
and  sniffed  and  examined  one  to  their  heart's  content. 
The  superintendent  joined  us  and  pointed  out  the  American 
and  British  strains  in  his  charges,  while  his  lovely  golden 
setter,  "  Lady,"  played  the  most  unladylike  game  of  teas- 
ing the  brood  mares.  She  would  mark  an  unsuspecting 
mare  and  creeping  quietly  up,  spring  into  the  air  with  a 
snap  at  her  nervous  victim's  nose.  Up  the  startled  brood 
mare  would  fling  her  head,  and  Lady,  as  frightened  as  she, 
would  slide  cravenly  away,  quivering  in  every  limb  — 
only  to  recover  her  self-possession  again  and  trot  off  to 
startle  yet  another  victim. 

At  the  supper-table  that  night,  we  fell  to  chatting  of 
hunting.  Tombeark  asserted  that  Colonel  Savlovski  was 
the  proud  possessor  of  the  second  finest  shotgun  in  the 
world  —  the  reputed  best  belongs  to  the  Tsar.  This  won- 
derful weapon  is  of  English  make,  and  passes  most  of  its 
time  in  a  safe  deposit  vault  at  Omsk. 

Tombeark  spoke  in  high  terms  of  the  dachshund  as  a 
sporting  dog,  which  sounded  odd  to  a  citizen  of  a  nation 
which  reserves  its  dachshunds  for  decorous  suburban  walks 
with  staid  maiden  ladies.     Apparently  we  ought  to  regard 


PAYING  CALLS  73 

the  dachshund  with  respect.  He  is  a  spirited  little  beast 
and  much  in  demand  with  gunners  in  Kussia  and  Siberia. 
He  will  readily  keep  to  heel,  resisting  the  temptation  to 
dash  about  and  lose  his  head  when  you  come  on  a  little 
flurry  of  game. 

They  use  him  in  bear  hunts,  too.  Does  not  the  idea  of 
a  few  couple  of  little  dachshunds  giving  chase  to  a  great 
Siberian  bear  sound  pantomimic  to  American  ears  ? 

However,  his  bravery  is  proverbial.  He  shuts  his  eyes 
and  hangs  on  to  the  great  beast's  jowl,  as  Rikki  Tikki  clung 
to  I^ag's  whirling  hood,  never  leaving  go,  flustering 
the  bear  until  the  huntsmen  come  up  to  administer  the 
coup  de  grace. 

Tombeark  went  on  to  tell  of  wolf  hunting  with  the  long, 
lithe  Borzoi.  Outside  Russia^  the  Borzoi  figures  chiefly 
as  an  artistic  adjunct  to  photographs  of  the  Danish  prin- 
cesses; but  east  of  the  Urals  he  has  to  abandon  musical 
comedy  attitudes  and  face  a  dangerous  and  a  strenuous 
life.  Wolf  hunting  with  Borzois  is  not  so  general  in 
the  Russian  empire  to-day  as  it  used  to  be.  It  flourishes 
chiefly  in  the  Orenburg  province,  in  southwest  Russia. 
The  Borzoi  has  not  the  staying  power  of  the  British  grey- 
hound, but  he  is  incomparable  in  a  half  mile  spurt. 

"  We  ride  out  in  the  morning,"  Tombeark  told  me, 
"  half-a-dozen  men  with  four  couple  of  Borzoi  on  leash. 
Sighting  a  wolf  colony  among  the  rocks  of  a  wooded  hill- 
side, at  a  distance  of  say  790  meters,  we  slip  the  leashes 
and  spur  forward  our  horses  into  a  gallop.  Then  what 
do  you  think  happens? 

"  The  pack,  which  from  the  moment  it  had  sighted  us 
till  the  loosing  of  the  hounds,  had  sat  quietly  on  its 
haunches,  awaiting  developments,  prepares  for  action. 
The  moment  the  hounds  are  loosed,  the  young  wolves  of 
the  pack  turn  tail  and  scamper  off.     Meanwhile,  the  older 


74,  THKOUGH  SIBERIA 

wolves  sit  there  unperturbed.  When  we  have  covered  half 
the  distance  and  are  some  390  meters  away,  they  too  get 
up  and  glide  off  between  the  pines.  Then  two  wolves  only 
are  left,  the  old  father  and  mother,  leaders  of  the  pack. 

"  With  the  gleaming-f  anged  Borzois  racing  toward  them 
at  breakneck  speed,  Father  and  Mother  Wolf  do  not  turn 
a  hair  till  the  foremost  hound  is  within  a  short  hundred 
yards.  Then  Mother  Wolf  glides  off  to  the  left.  Father 
Wolf  stands  his  ground  until  the  Borzois  are  almost  upon 
him.  Then  he  lopes  off  under  their  very  noses,  in  the 
opposite  direction  to  that  taken  by  his  wife.  The  result 
is,  of  course,  that  the  hounds  forget  the  pack,  and  follow 
Father  Wolf.  Separated  by  only  a  few  feet,  he  leads 
them  for  a  verst  or  two,  far  enough  to  have  given  the 
pack  and  Mother  Wolf  plenty  of  leeway  in  their  flight. 
Then  he  stops  playing  and  begins  to  run  in  real  earnest, 
leaving  the  winded  Borzois  iar  behind. 

"  You  may  imagine  how  exasperating  it  is  for  us  hunts- 
men. All  we  can  do  is  to  keep  one  couple  on  leash  during 
the  general  rush,  and  to  take  them  up  the  track  of  the 
young  wolves  when  the  other  Borzois  lose  their  heads.  We 
may  have  to  follow  the  young  wolves  for  ten  versts.  They 
rarely  hold  out  for  longer.  Then  we  find  them  sometimes 
lying  exhausted  in  the  snow,  their  heads  buried  in  a 
scraped-out  hollow,  after  the  manner  of  the  African  os- 
trich. Of  course,  you  will  understand,  there  are  times 
when  the  wolf  pack  loses  its  head.  The  flight  does  not 
always  take  place  as  Father  and  Mother  Wolf  desire ;  that 
is  why  we  unleash  most  of  our  hounds  as  soon  as  we  sight 
the  pack." 

"  Is  the  wolf  much  to  be  feared  ? "  I  asked. 

"  Kot  in  summer,"  said  Tombeark.  "  But  in  the  win- 
ter months,  with  an  empty  belly  and  food  scarce,  he  is 
quite  another  beast,  and  you  do  well  to  keep  out  of  his 


PAYING  CALLS  75 

way  after  the  dusk  begins  to  settle  down.  He  is  most 
dangerous  in  January. 

"  The  wolf  wanders  singly  or  in  pairs  during  the  sum- 
mer. Food  is  plentiful  and  his  life  is  pleasant  enough. 
Then  comes  the  first  pinch  of  winter,  in  late  September, 
and  game  grows  scarce.  The  young  wolves  begin  to  feel 
pangs  of  hunger,  and  drawn  together  by  this  common 
bond,  they  will  sit  along  the  outskirts  of  villages  at  dusk 
and  howl  their  summons  to  all  wolves  within  call.  In 
this  way  packs  form,  not  large  packs  nowadays. 

"  Ten  years  ago,  packs  hereabouts  often  numbered  a 
hundred  or  more,  but  a  dozen  or  fifteen  is  more  usual 
today.  Last  week,  by  the  way,  a  pack  of  ten  visited  a 
man's  farmyard  out  Salaiyeer  way,  and  killed  six  cows 
during  the  night." 

After  breakfast  on  the  following  morning,  Tombeark 
made  his  appearance  and  asked  me  to  come  and  inspect 
the  bees'  winter  quarters.  The  old  beekeeper,  a  shaggy- 
headed  patriarch  of  eighty-four,  led  the  way  for  a  few 
hundred  yards  up  the  steep  hillside  behind  the  bungalow. 
The  snow  lay  two  feet  deep;  just  a  hardened  crust  no 
wider  than  a  handbreadth  constituted  the  path. 

The  bee  farm  was  a  warm,  sunny  little  hollow  of  about 
two  acres,  at  the  top  of  the  wood.  In  a  couple  of  sheds 
were  stacked  the  hives,  honey  boxes,  and  agricultural  gear. 
Passing  through  a  thick,  felt-rimmed  door,  I  found  myself 
in  a  warm,  dark  retreat.  There  was  a  faint  droning  in 
the  air.  Around  me  were  a  hundred  white  wooden  hives, 
each  with  its  neatly  stenciled  number.  On  a  post  among 
the  hives  hung  a  holy  ikon,  a  brass-shrined  enamel  of 
Saint  Peter  —  even  the  bees  were  being  brought  up  under 
the  proper  auspices  of  the  Orthodox  Greek  Church. 

At  eleven  o'clock,  a  sledge  was  brought  roimd  to  the 
door,  and  when  good-bys  had  been  said,  off  I  started  on 


76  TIIKOUGH  SIBERIA 

the  long  return  jonrney  to  tlie  Trans-Siberian.  I  decided 
to  make  the  trip  in  true  Siberian  style,  one  swift  dash, 
sledging  day  and  night  through  the  snowclad  wastes. 

The  first  morning  stage  was  exquisite.  The  horses 
were  fresh  and  needed  no  inducement  to  proceed  at  wild 
gallop.  The  world  around  us  was  painted  in  just  five 
colors :  the  deep  blue  sky,  paling  to  sea-green  on  the  south- 
ern horizon;  the  dazzling  snow;  the  warm  red  of  the  pine 
trunks  and  their  olive  foliage.  At  the  end  of  a  Siberian 
v/inter,  pines  are  withered  to  a  much  lighter  shade  than 
in  more  clement  climes. 

Once  out  on  the  steppe  beyond  the  forested  hills,  we 
ran  into  a  keen,  steady  wind  that  seemed  to  strip  the 
garments  off  one's  back.  At  two  o'clock  we  reached  a 
village,  and  I  chartered  new  horses.  The  next  village 
was  reached  at  the  end  of  the  afternoon.  Here  there  was 
a  delay  in  changing  horses,  and  it  was  not  until  after  ten 
o'clock  that  we  came  to  Beriorzvor.  Both  the  driver  and 
myself  were  very  cold  and  could  scarcely  unclench  our 
cramped  fists  to  pick  up  the  glasses  of  steaming  tea  that 
■\vere  given  us.  On  our  arrival,  the  whole  family  was 
abed,  curled  up  under  dirty  blankets  on  the  floors  of  the 
three  intercommunicating  rooms.  However,  the  chance 
of  seeing  a  real  live  foreigner  from  a  faraway  land  was 
too  good  to  miss ;  and,  one  by  one,  sleepy  men  and  women 
and  children  yawned  themselves  in,  and  sat  ranged  along 
the  two  forms  against  the  opposite  wall,  watching  mo 
intently.  There  were  seven  of  them,  and  four  small  chil- 
dren. 

Then  there  was  trouble  about  continuing  the  journey. 
Would  not  the  morning  do?  they  asked.  I  told  them 
that  it  most  decidedly  would  not,  and  that  I  must  have 
horses  "  SeycJias!  Seijchm!"  They  talked  things  over, 
and  presently  the  grandfather  of  the  household  made  a 


The  tyiJical    Siljcriaii   hut   is   heavily   stockaded 


An   interior  view  showing  ihe   ii<tin   corner 


PAYING  CALLS  77 

long  and  mumbling  speech  to  me,  riddled  with  allusions 
to  the  varrh,  the  dreaded  Siberian  wolf.  From  the  trend 
o£  his  remarks  I  gathered  that  the  wolves  were  making 
themselves  objectionable  on  the  Popayretchnaia  trail  just 
then,  and  that  a  night  journey  was  not  relished.  How- 
ever, I  pulled  up  my  snow  boots,  fur  coat  and  gauntlets, 
and  gathered  my  belongings  together.  They  saw  that  I 
was  in  earnest;  a  woman  beckoned  me  to  be  seated  for  a 
few  minutes,  and  sent  a  boy  out  into  the  night.  Then 
an  icy  draught  swept  in  and  the  doorway  was  blocked  by 
a  big  man  with  a  stock-whip,  who  made  a  courtly  bow  to 
the  gaspadine,  took  his  baggage,  and  out  we  went. 

A  rough  cross-country  sledge  journey  by  night,  across 
one  of  the  worst  trails  in  southern  Siberia,  spells  a  good 
many  things  having  to  be  seen  to.  The  cold  is  more  in- 
tense, of  course,  and  you  must  have  three  or  four  fur 
rugs  or  sheepskin  coats  to  throw  over  your  knees,  as  you 
squat  in  the  nest  of  hay.  You  have  to  go  over  the  crude, 
patched-up  harness  piece  by  piece,  to  see  that  the  whole 
will  stand  the  strain  of  a  frantic  bolt,  should  a  wolf  pack 
be  encountered.  And  the  traces  of  the  outrigger  horse 
have  to  be  tautened  up  with  especial  care,  for  they  have 
a  knack  of  slackening  and  fouling  the  heels  of  the  other 
horse. 

Three  of  the  peasants  stood  by  us  with  swing  lamps,  as 
preparations  were  completed,  and  the  rest  of  the  family 
clustered  around  the  open  door  of  the  cottage.  When 
everything  was  ready,  we  were  tucked  in,  and  the  driver 
laid  a  big  nickel-plated  revolver  and  a  thick  shillelagh  of 
a  stick  across  his  lap.  A  man  smote  the  outrigger,  and 
away  we  slid  into  the  blue  night. 

The  wind  had  dropped  for  a  while,  and  the  going  was 
very  pleasant.  All  the  stars  of  the  zodiac  seemed  to  have 
clustered   just   over   our  heads,   and   a   curious   moon  — 


T8  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

"  The  Old  Moon  in  the  ISTew  Moon's  Arms  " —  drooped 
over  the  eastern  sky.  It  was  a  new  moon,  a  mere  crescent, 
but  a  thin  silver  rim  curved  from  tip  to  tip  of  the  horns, 
and  the  whole  disc  shone  faintly  luminous  against  the 
enveloping  darkness. 

But  the  lull  was  too  good  to  last.  Before  many  versts, 
we  encountered  once  more  the  keen  blast  of  the  steppes, 
whirling  up  the  powdery  snow  as  a  summer  windstorm 
picks  up  the  dust. 

How  the  driver  and  his  horses  ever  managed  to  keep 
to  the  track  was  a  mystery.  For  a  whole  hour  at  a  time, 
we  dashed  over  an  absolutely  featureless  expanse  of  swell- 
ing steppe,  a  treeless  sea  of  snow,  no  visible  track  before 
or  behind  us.  The  driver  grew  sleepy  soon  after  midnight 
and  began  to  yawn.  He  crooned  a  low,  mournful  dirge, 
as  he  crouched  among  the  hay  and  furs,  a  befitting  accom- 
paniment to  the  cold  and  darkness  and  desolation. 

Presently  the  track  passed  through  a  strip  of  pine  forest. 
The  driver  became  more  alert :  he  ceased  droning  his  song 
and  leaned  forward,  staring  intently  ahead. 

Suddenly,  with  a  jerk,  the  horses  stopped  dead  and 
bucked  back  on  their  haunches.  Snatching  up  his  club, 
the  driver  sprang  to  his  feet.  I  pulled  my  automatic 
from  its  holster  and  scrambled  free  of  the  rugs  —  just 
in  time  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  wolf  slinking  off  between 
the  trees. 

We  had  some  difficulty  in  starting  the  horses  ahead. 
With  heaving  flanks  and  quivering  nostrils  they  stood 
there,  rooted  firmly  in  their  tracks,  oblivious  of  kicks  that 
would  have  got  an  elephant  under  way.  However,  we 
tried  a  shot  in  the  air.     It  had  the  desired  effect. 

There  was  no  more  crooning  of  little  songs,  and  no 
more  dozing.  I  think  we  were  both  somewhat  relieved 
when  that  forest  began  to  fade  on  the  horizon  in  our  rear, 


PAYING  CALLS  19 

and  the  plains  opened  out  again,  cold,  bleak  and  utterly- 
deserted  though  they  were. 

We  banged  up  the  Bobareekin  household  at  about  half- 
past  three  in  the  morning,  and  bj  four  the  huts  of  Popay- 
retchnaia  were  left  behind  us  on  the  last  lap  of  the  jour- 
ney. To  do  justice  to  the  cold  of  that  last  stage,  in  the 
wee  sma'  hours,  would  need  more  resources  than  are 
available  in  the  English  tongue.  It  was  agonizing,  and 
I  had  had  no  exercise  to  stir  my  circulation  since  ten. 
o'clock  the  previous  morning.  But  it  had  to  come  to  an 
end. 

As  the  pink  dawn  flushed  over  the  eastern  hills,  we 
came  in  sight  of  the  great  girder  bridge  that  carries  the 
Trans-Siberian  railroad  over  the  Tom,  and  at  six  o'clock 
we  arrived  at  Tootalskaia. 

It  had  been  good  going.  According  to  Tombeark,  the 
Colonel  has  a  reputation  for  fast  sledge  dashes,  and  actu- 
ally made  the  journey  from  Salaiyeer  to  Tootalskaia,  on 
one  occasion,  in  twenty-two  hours.  I  had  taken  just  nine- 
teen. 


Chaptek  VI 
IRKUTSK,   THE  UNREGENERATE 

WHAT  San  Erancisco  was  in  '49  when  it  flourished 
as  the  gilded  Gomorrah  of  the  West,  Irkutsk, 
the  largest  town  of  Siberia  and  metropolis  of  the 
Asiatic  goldfields,  is  to-day  —  with  additional  trimmings. 

Residence  in  Irkutsk  is  not  altogether  a  rest  cure  for 
the  nerves.  With  a  population  of  close  on  to  113,000, 
crammed  into  a  couple  of  square  miles  on  a  picturesque 
bend  of  the  river  Angarar,  it  produces  some  hundreds  of 
murders  and  murderous  assaults  in  the  course  of  a  year, 
with  a  few  dozen  arrests  and  fewer  convictions,  with  sen- 
tences of  a  short  residence  in  jail.  That  was  the  situation 
a  couple  of  years  ago,  and  with  a  throb  of  civic  pride, 
the  natives  told  us  1910  was  quite  an  off  year. 

"  In  the  spring,  a  young  man's  fancy  (in  Irkutsk) 
fondly  turns  to  thoughts  of  blood."  One  fine  day  in 
May,  a  year  or  two  back,  there  were  twenty-two  assorted 
murders  and  attempted  murders  within  a  short  distance 
of  the  city.  These  included  a  disastrous  picnic  on  an 
island  in  the  lower  Angarar,  to  which  an  enterprising 
Irkutskian  invited  a  dozen  persons  he  disliked.  He  saw 
that  they  were  all  busy  unpacking  lunch  and  then  put  off 
in  the  boat  and  managed  to  shoot  down  half  a  dozen  before 
one  of  the  guests  hit  him. 

Then  the  street  cleaners  and  insurance  agents  voiced  a 
protest,  and  there  was  talk  of  reviving  the  old  Vigilance 

80 


IRKUTSK,  THE  UNREGENEEATE    81 

Committee  that  citizens  used  to  frame  up  among  them- 
selves after  the  manner  of  'Frisco  once  on  a  day. 

The  Vigilance  Committee  that  held  sway  in  Irkutsk 
was  not  altogether  a  success.  The  scheme,  projected  by 
a  handful  of  law-abiding  citizens,  was  enthusiastically 
received  —  by  ex-convicts  and  delegates  of  professional 
murderers.  They  rolled  u]}  in  their  dozens  and  scores 
and  volunteered  for  service.  The  governor  granted  them 
exceptional  powers,  and  they  made  the  best  of  them. 
While  such  police  as  there  were  were  bribed  into  passivity, 
wealthy  merchants  were  shot  down  in  broad  daylight  as 
"  suspects  " ;  and  under  the  cover  of  "  house-raiding  "  and 
"  punitory  confiscation,"  burglary  put  out  blossoms  and 
flourished  like  a  green  bay  tree.  That  is  why  the  Vig- 
ilance Committee  idea  is  no  longer  as  popular  in  Irkutsk 
as  it  might  be.  Still,  though  Vigilance  Committees  are 
banished  to  the  limbo  of  the  past,  the  police  and  Cossacks 
keep  life  lively. 

A  few  years  ago,  all  the  gold  mined  in  Eastern  Siberia 
had  to  pass  through  the  government  laboratory  at  Irkutsk. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  quite  a  lot  of  it  did  —  about  forty 
per  cent.  The  other  sixty  per  cent,  went  to  the  city's 
Chinese  "  dealers  in  tea,"  and  journeyed  back  to  the  Celes- 
tial Empire  in  many  and  deviouS(  ways,  a  good  proportion 
packed  in  the  corpses  of  coflfined  Chinamen  who  were 
being  returned  to  the  east  for  burial  among  their  ancestors. 

Well,  in  spite  of  that  leakage,  a  good  deal  of  gold  dust 
found  its  way  into  the  laboratory,  and  having  been  cast 
into  ingots,  was  stacked  up  in  tempting  array,  to  await 
transportation  to  Russia  and  the  imperial  mint.  After 
several  night  watchmen  at  the  institution  had  met  with 
accidents,  the  authorities  began  to  perceive  the  coinci- 
dence, and  appointed  a  force  of  Cossacks  to  come  in  each 
evening  and  stand  guard  over  the  treasure. 


82  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

All  went  well  for  a  time.  Then,  one  dark  and  stormy 
night,  the  Cossack  guard  brewed  itself  a  glass  of  hot  chaij 
lit  its  cigarette,  turned  up  its  overcoat  collar,  and  com- 
pletely disappeared  with  every  single  ingot  of  gold  on 
the  premises.  Since  then,  Cossacks,  as  civil  authority, 
have  shared  Irkutsk's  feeling  toward  Vigilance  Com- 
mittees. 

There  are  other  aspects  of  the  preservation  of  law  and 
order  in  Irkutsk,  of  which  Scotland  Yard  would  not  alto- 
gether approve.  For  the  last  eighteen  months,  the  city 
has  had  a  rudimentary  street  lighting  system,  but  the  resi- 
dential thoroughfares,  a  stone's-throw  from  the  main 
shopping  streets,  are  left  in  pitchy  darkness.  Naturally 
they  form  the  burglar's  Happy  Hunting  Ground.  Not 
infrequently,  as  you  pass  down  one  of  these  streets  late 
at  night,  you  will  be  startled  by  an  explosion  over  your 
head  and  the  whistle  of  birdshot  past  your  ears.  For  the 
timid  householders,  without  the  slightest  objection  being 
raised  by  the  police,  fire  a  shotgun  from  the  bedroom 
window  before  turning  in  for  the  night,  just  to  show  the 
possible  lurking  burglars  that  there  is  a  gun  in  the  house. 

The  city's  policing  is  done  partly  by  municipal,  partly 
by  private  patrolmen,  the  latter  subsidized  by  property 
owners.  The  private  constables  deserve  an  honored  niche 
in  the  gallery  of  Twentieth  Century  philosophers.  The 
Irkutsk  night  patrolman,  with  the  high-souled  purpose  of 
warning  prospective  burglars  of  his  approach  and  causing 
them  to  abstain  from  sinning,  makes  the  night  hideous  by 
perpetually  clattering  a  powerful  wooden  rattle.  He 
grasps  it  firmly  in  his  hand,  and  from  dusk  to  dawn 
parades  the  streets,  whirring  it  round  and  round  at  every 
few  paces. 

The  method  of  assault  practiced  by  the  Siberian  outlaw 
is  "  garroting.''     He  approaches  his  victim  from  behind 


IRKUTSK,  THE  U:N'REGENERATE  83 

and  throws  over  his  head  a  loop  attached  to  a  stick.  One 
quick  jerk,  and  the  unfortunate  wayfarer  is  hurled  back- 
ward, gasping  for  breath,  or  dead  —  his  neck  broken. 
There  are  few  holdups  in  Siberia  without  murder;  mur- 
der gives  a  nice  touch  of  finality  to  the  deed.  One  is 
disposed  to  ask  if  the  natives  do  not  protest  against  their 
streets  being  littered  up  in  this  manner;  what  a  house- 
holder does  when  he  goes  out  to  sweep  the  pavement  of 
mornings  and  finds  a  stray  corpse  lying  on  his  doorstep. 
Innately  religious,  the  Siberian  gives  Christian  burial  to 
those  he  finds  garroted  to  death.  He  even  erects  a  cross 
over  the  grave,  a  cross  inscribed  with  the  petition  asking 
whosoever  passes  by  that  spot  to  pray  for  the  soul  of  him 
who  died.  Siberia  is  filled  with  these  crosses.  One  en- 
counters them  everywhere,  in  the  fields,  along  country 
roads,  and  on  the  mountain  sides. 

Of  the  tens  of  thousands  of  convicts  in  Siberia,  a  large 
proportion  make  their  way  into  Irkutsk  at  the  expiration 
of  their  sentences,  anxious  to  snatch  a  few  weeks*  enjoy- 
ment of  the  sights  and  sounds  of  this  crude,  overgrown 
mining  camp  before  making  plans  for  the  future. 

Every  Russian  subject,  of  course,  equally  with  the  for- 
eigner, must  hold  a  passport.  At  the  end  of  their  term, 
the  dangerous  criminals  get  "  black  passports,"  vv^hich 
generally  prevent  their  being  able  to  find  honest  employ- 
ment. They  have  to  live,  so  they  are  beggars  by  day, 
thieves  and  cut-throats  by  night.  They  keep  on  good  terms 
with  the  police  and  any  detachment  of  troops  that  might 
happen  to  be  detailed,  at  the  moment,  for  patrol  work  on 
the  streets,  and  do  not  find  it  difficult  to  bribe  them  to 
abstain  from  interference. 

Erom  the  lawless  side  of  poverty-stricken,  wealth-cursed 
Irkutsk  to  the  gayety  of  the  gilded  hotels  and  dance-halls 
is  not  so  far  a  cry  as  you  might  suppose.     For,  unsus- 


84  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

pected  by  the  casual  visitor  to  the  big  towns  of  Siberia, 
the  obsequious  waiters,  who  bustle  to  and  fro  to  fulfill 
one's  every  wish,  often  enough  are  murderers  who  have 
served  their  time  and  decided  to  settle  down  in  the  east. 
The  tall,  portly  head  waiter  with  the  restless  eye  and  the 
big,  bifurcated  Slavonic  beard,  who  must  be  recollected 
by  those  travelers  who  have  visited  Tomsk,  slew  his  wife 
and  her  lover,  and  has  served  a  long  term  of  imprisonment 
in  an  ohlast  of  the  frozen  north. 

Of  the  Irkutsk  hotels,  the  two  chief  have  murderers  on 
their  waiting  staffs.  The  other  waiters  are  said  to  welcome 
them  —  they  have  a  healthy  influence  on  nervous  guests 
whose  tips  might  be  larger. 

Irkutsk  is  pretty  gay  at  nights  now,  but  the  citizens 
look  back  enviously  to  the  zenith  of  its  career,  to  the  days 
of  the  war  with  Japan.  Then  champagne  and  other 
costly  wines  were  cautiously  transported,  free  of  duty 
and  freight  charges,  from  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  in 
those  gray  steel  cars  labeled  "  Powder,"  cars  militant  with 
painted  imperial  two-headed  eagles,  a  lurid  picture  of  a 
bursting  shell,  and  military  guards,  which  you  pass  now 
and  again  on  the  railroad.  At  Irkutsk,  the  "  powder  " 
cars  were  shunted  oif  along  the  barracks'  sidings  and  found 
a  final  house  of  refuge  at  the  end  of  the  rails  entering 
the  store  shed  of  the  officers'  mess,  in  the  barracks  west 
of  the  big  red-girder  bridge  across  the  Irkut.  A  colonel 
of  a  locally  stationed  line  regiment  openly  boasted  in  the 
hotel  restaurant,  one  night,  that  more  champagne  was 
consumed  in  Irkutsk  in  one  month  during  the  Japanese 
war  than  is  sold  on  Broadway  —  that  backbone  of  the 
champagne  industry  —  in  half  a  year. 

The  fun  at  Irkutsk  starts  at  midnight.  An  hour  be- 
fore,  the  city  is   as   dead   as   a  ]S[ew  England   Sunday. 


lEKUTSK,  THE  UNEEGENEEATE    85 

Then  the  theaters  and  the  moving  picture  shows  close 
down,  and  everyone  crowds  into  the  restaurants. 

You  enter  a  pair  of  swing  doors,  kick  off  your  felt  snow 
boots,  hand  your  furs  to  an  attendant  and  pass  on  into 
a  long  room  thronged  with  diners,  gay  with  the  uniforms 
of  the  garrison  and  women  in  smart  Parisian  costumes. 
At  the  far  end  is  a  small  stage  on  which  a  score  of  maidens 
in  a  minimum  of  skirt  and  a  maximum  of  smile  go  through 
fatuous  double-shuffles  and  fancy  dances  executed  with  a 
degree  of  incompetency  that  would  leave  a  Bowery  "  am- 
ateur night  "  audience  dumb  with  scorn. 

An  act  over,  the  dancers  skip  down  to  mingle  with  the 
crowd,  scattering  around  the  tables  and  ordering  the  cost- 
liest fruits  and  the  rarest  wines  that  the  management  can 
provide.  There  are  songs,  curious  yelping  conceits  by 
untrained  feminine  voices;  and  sleek,  swarthy  Poles  sing 
their  national  comic  songs,  with  snatches  of  patter  and 
pathetic  attempts  at  a  "  cellar  flap  "  which  help  to  capture 
the  guests'  straying  attention  for  a  few  moments.  Till 
da^vn  there  are  gay  music  and  crude  vaudeville,  crude, 
but  going  with  a  genuine  verve  and  spirit  of  unforced 
fun  that  is  lacked  by  many  a  better  show  —  fine  fare  for 
the  groups  of  self-condemned  exiles,  the  mining  agents 
and  engineers,  officers  of  the  garrison,  fur  traders,  mer- 
chants, concessionaires  and  miners,  snatching  a  brief  holi- 
day in  town  from  the  desolation  of  the  Siberian  wilds. 

There  are  not  many  evening  distractions  in  Irkutsk. 
If  you  have  not  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  tongue, 
Eussian  realistic  drama  at  the  opera  house  on  the  Bolsh- 
skaia,  or  Main  Street,  is  apt  to  pall.  Then  you  are  re- 
duced to  the  moving  picture  shows. 

The  chief  moving  picture  show  of  Siberia's  capital  gives 
a  weekly  engagement  to  some  seductive  human  draw,  a 


86  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

blessed  oasis  appearing  in  the  desert  once  an  hour  from 
six  till  midnight.  There  was  the  ossified  man  —  an 
American  from  Maine  —  who  was  wheeled  round  on  a 
barrow  every  afternoon  from  his  comfortable  quarters  at 
the  hotel,  surrounded  by  an  admiring  and  loudly  specu- 
lative gang  of  small  boys. 

And  the  Hinglishman  from  Hupper  Clapton,  who  pro- 
fessionally added  to  the  gayety  of  nations  by  dying,  coram 
populo,  thirty-six  times  a  week.  At  least,  he  held  a  cer- 
tificate from  a  professor  at  the  University  of  St.  Peters- 
burg, stating  that  he  could  stop  his  heart  beating  for 
twenty-eight  minutes  at  a  stretch,  though  in  Irkutsk  he 
did  not  make  a  practice  of  repeating  the  full  rigor  of  that 
feat,  for  even  the  satisfying  spectacle  of  a  dead  Cockney 
begins  to  bore  a  Siberian  audience  after  the  first  ten 
minutes. 

When  the  management  launched  a  Prussian  with  per- 
forming cats  and  a  lisp,  we  forswore  the  glittering  allure- 
ment of  that  hall  of  pleasure  and  took  to  sitting  late  over 
our  liqueurs,  in  the  hotel  restaurant,  studying  the  phases 
of  the  Russian  officer  in  his  cups. 

There  were  they  who,  being  too  far  gone  to  see  the 
lamps  through  the  narrow  bore  of  the  straws  accompanying 
their  cocktails,  seized  each  successive  bunch  brought  by 
a  trembling  waiter  and  rending  them  in  twain,  cast  them 
upon  the  floor  until  the  immediate  vicinity  would  have 
furnished  the  Israelites  of  old  with  sufficient  brickmaking 
apparatus  to  rebuild  a  substantial  section  of  the  Philae. 
There  were  the  fat  little  doctor  of  the  27th  regiment,  who 
would  ever  and  anon  wobble  unsteadily  over  to  the  orches- 
tra and  get  the  pretty  girl  with  the  rose  in  her  hair  to 
let  him  bang  the  drum  at  noisy  crescendos  in  the  marches ; 
and  the  major  who  drank  two  bottles  of  maraschino,  and 
then  watered  the  fern  on  his  table  with  half  a  pint  of 


IRKUTSK,  THE  UNREGE^ERATE  87 

kuramel,  rather  than  leave  what  he  could  not  manage 
to  the  waiters;  and  others  who  did  not  behave  so  well. 

On  the  second  day  of  our  sojourn  at  the  hotel,  a  Danish 
acquaintance  asked  if  we  knew  that  the  manager  was 
telling  everyone  that  Wright  (Richardson  L.)  was  Wright 
(Orville),  the  brother  of  Wilbur.  The  news  of  this  illus- 
trious arrival  was  spreading  about  the  metropolis  of  Si- 
beria, and  already  the  hotel  had  corralled,  on  the  strength 
of  it,  numbers  of  the  regular  patrons  of  rival  establish- 
ments. We  asked  our  informant  to  pass  the  word  along 
to  the  reporters  of  the  Siherski,  the  chief  Irkutsk  daily 
newspaper,  and  to  translate  a  most  illuminating  interview 
we  subsequently  drew  up,  giving  sensational  details  of  a 
large  aeronautic  campaign  that  brother  Wilbur  was  about 
to  launch  in  Irkutsk.  But  being  a  resident  of  the  city, 
he  deemed  it  advisable  to  study  his  future  bodily  safety, 
so  he  reluctantly  declined. 

We  arrived  in  Irkutsk  on  the  sixth  of  April,  one  of 
those  abnormally  warm  days  that  come  to  us,  at  home, 
in  early  March,  a  balmy  day  flooded  with  sunshine  and 
full  of  the  joyous  promise  of  spring.  And  the  first  Si- 
berian spring  day,  the  first  day  you  can  take  a  walk 
without  your  furs,  can  unscrew  the  double  windows  that 
have  been  sealed  hermetically  for  more  than  half  a  year, 
is  something  you  can  never  forget. 

The  snow  is  thawing  fast  and  brooks  of  water  ripple 
dovm  the  gutters.  There  is  a  new,  light-hearted  atmos- 
phere about  the  streets.  Everyone  is  smiling  and  gay, 
and  merry  chatter  is  bandied  to  and  fro  among  the  pas- 
sersby.  Front  doors  are  thrown  open,  and  women  and 
children  sit  on  the  step.  Chairs  and  tables  are  brought 
out  into  the  courtyards.  Corner  liquor  shops  leave  their 
doors  open,  and  stores  let  down  sun-awnings  of  spruce 
striped  canvas.     Girls  in  fur  toques  hurry  along  the  side- 


88  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

walks,  each  carrying  a  large  paper  bag  bulging  obviously 
■with  that  fine  new  spring  hat. 

The  market  is  thronged  with  housewives  of  every  social 
status,  baskets  on  arms,  anxious  to  mark  the  advent  of 
spring  by  bringing  home  some  special  delicacy.  Hun- 
dreds of  peasants  have  come  in  from  the  country,  laden 
with  produce.  They  squat  in  long  double  rows,  shoulder 
to  shoulder,  among  their  bales  and  baskets.  Some  are 
crouching  in  a  group  of  turkeys,  free  or  tethered,  which 
peck  at  handfuls  of  grain  that  have  been  powdered  into 
a  tuft  of  hay  to  prevent  too  rapid  consumption.  There 
are  great  crates  of  dead  moorcock  and  quail,  and  live 
capercailzies  in  netting-roofed  wicker  cages;  live  fowls 
and  pigeons  and  tame  white  rabbits.  Kegs  of  salted  cab- 
bage and  cucumber,  bowls  of  cream  and  stone  pitchers  of 
milk;  vegetables  of  a  score  of  tints  and  kinds.  Tiny 
calves  have  been  roaming  about  with  the  big  scavenger 
dogs  of  the  market,  and  lie,  stretched  out  on  their  sides, 
basking  with  them  in  the  sun.  Along  by  the  river,  men 
are  busy  with  upturned  boats,  caulking  seams  and  paint- 
ing gunwales.  And  the  summery  smell  of  hot  tar  comes 
fragrantly  down  the  breeze. 

The  Angarar  is  one  of  the  first  rivers  in  Siberia  to  rid 
itself  of  ice  in  the  spring.  Rising  in  Baikal,  it  scurries 
past  Irkutsk  at  six  miles  an  hour,  green,  glass-clear  water 
through  which  one  can  distinguish  every  fish  and  bottom 
pebble  twenty  feet  beneath  a  boat  keel.  Standing  on  the 
high  bank,  with  our  binoculars,  we  could  clearly  see  the 
snow-clad  peaks  of  the  mountains  the  other  side  of  Baikal, 
over  forty  miles  to  the  east. 

We  remained  in  Irkutsk  two  weeks,  and  spring  was 
with  us  most  of  the  time.  There  were  days  when  we 
loafed  in  the  little  park  on  the  Angarar  bank  beneath  the 
shadow   of  the   colossal   statue  of  Alexander   III.     The 


lEKUTSK,  THE  UOTIEGENEEATE  89 

monument,  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  Bolshskaia,  looks 
not  back  along  the  railroad  that  this  empire-dreamer  con- 
ceived and  built,  but  eastward  to  Amurland  and  Man- 
churia. The  Irkutskians  are  proud  of  their  statue,  and 
rightly  so.  Were  it  not  for  Alexander  III  their  town 
would  still  be  the  straggling  trade  post  it  was  three  dec- 
ades ago.     Moreover,  the  statue  is  a  genuine  work  of  art. 

On  one  side  of  the  Bolshskaia  opposite  the  statue  stands 
the  museum  where  is  housed  a  remarkable  collection  of 
ethnological  curios.  On  the  other  side  of  the  street  is 
the  residence  of  the  governor-general. 

Across  the  river  from  Irkutsk,  on  the  south  side  of  the 
Angarar,  is  a  little  summer  resort,  Glascow.  In  the  warm 
•weather  the  Irkutskians  of  money  move  over  there  and 
keep  cool  in  their  bungalows  up  among  the  birch  groves. 
At  night  time  a  brass  bgnd  blares  out  crude  music  for 
their  delectation. 

If  you  walk  over  the  hills  behind  Glascow  you  eventu- 
ally come  to  a  stockade  that  at  first  glance  spells  the 
sinister  word  prison.  But  if  you  can  creep  near  enough 
without  the  guard  noticing  you,  the  idea  is  dispelled  by 
a  glimpse  through  the  cracks  of  the  fence.  Within  this 
enclosure  is  stored  the  equipment  of  an  army  —  lines  of 
mountain  guns  and  gun  carriages,  heaps  of  pontoons  and 
wheels,  and  rows  and  rows  of  ambulances,  many  of  them 
battle-scarred.  This  is  the  magazine  of  the  Irkutsk  dis- 
trict. From  the  hill  where  it  stands  you  can  look  across 
Irkutsk  and  the  Angarar  to  the  heights  north  of  the  city 
where  the  Government  is  erecting  an  immense  barracks. 

We  walked  up  that  way  one  afternoon.  Leaving  the 
hotel,  we  passed  under  the  east  arch  whose  inscription 
told  us  "  This  is  the  way  to  the  great  ocean,"  followed 
the  Amurskaia,  a  stretch  of  the  original  road  along  which 
all  traffic  and  convicts  passed  before  the  railroad  came. 


90  THKOUGH  SIBEKIA 

sauntered  tlirough  the  Viana  Goroduk,  the  Cossack  city, 
skirted  an  old  serf  graveyard,  and  came  out  on  a  plateau 
above  the  city.  There,  in  the  center  of  it,  stood  the  bar- 
racks, a  six-story  affair,  grim,  imposing,  the  home  of 
10,000  troops.  The  Government  is  still  adding  to  it. 
The  stores  warehouses  are  springing  up  on  all  sides.  And 
the  barracks  chapel  is  almost  swallowed  up  in  this  new 
military  town  that  is  growing  around  it. 

On  our  way  back,  our  Danish  guide  stopped  a  soldier 
and  asked  the  direction.  He  was  a  sullen,  cow-faced 
peasant  with  a  bayoneted  gun  and  a  sabre  —  the  ordinary 
private.  He  pointed  the  way,  and  the  Dane  turned  to  us 
and  spoke  in  English.  Before  we  could  answer,  the  sol- 
dier broke  into  a  string  of  Bowery  welcomes  that,  despite 
their  crudity,  almost  made  one  feel  homesick.  He  asked, 
in  the  blandishing  parlance  of  George  M.  Cohan,  how 
"  Little  Old  New  York  "  was,  and  if  "  The  Broad  White 
Way  "  was  still  as  giddy  as  ever.  He  had  gone  to  Amer- 
ica, he  explained,  before  he  had  served  his  time  in  the 
army.  Then  a  touch  of  homesickness  had  called  him  back 
to  his  folks  in  Poland.  He  went,  but  before  he  had  been 
home  twenty-four  hours,  the  local  captain  of  gendarmes 
had  recognized  him  and  had  placed  him  under  arrest.  So 
he  was  obliged  to  join  a  regiment  and  was  sent  to  serve 
his  time  in  a  Siberian  garrison.  He  had  one  more  year, 
and  then  he  was  going  back  to  America. 

"  He  evidently  does  not  like  the  country,"  we  observed 
when  he  had  gotten  out  of  earshot. 

"  That's  not  to  be  wondered  at,"  Shonebeck  replied, 
"  He  was  a  Jew,  and  Jews  do  not  have  much  chance  in 
the  army.     They  cannot  rise  above  the  rank  of  captain." 

And  thus  we  fell  to  talking  about  the  Jew  in  Siberia. 

In  Russia  the  Jew  is  herded  into  a  corner  —  fifteen 
provinces  being  allotted  him  —  and  not  allowed  to  leave 


IRKUTSK,  THE  UNREGENERATE    91 

without  permission,  or  imless  he  is  a  professional  man  or 
a  skilled  artisan.  There  he  is  subjected  to  occasional 
'pogroms,  raids  by  orthodox  Christians  who  have  no  other 
way  of  venting  their  spleen  on  him  than  by  pillage  and 
murder.  In  Siberia,  however,  he  has  far  more  freedom. 
The  natives  tell  you  that  the  Jew  is  the  curse  of  Siberia, 
but  that  is  only  because  he  is  more  cute  and  more  perse- 
vering than  the  Russian  in  business. 

Irkutsk,  Shonebeck  informed  us,  is  owned  by  rich  Jews. 
And  we  found  them  up  to  their  old  tricks.  Half  the 
houses  in  town  are  placed  in  the  names  of  women.  The 
Russian  is  not  apt  to  have  his  Hebrew  creditor  pounce 
upon  his  home  in  payment  for  debts. 

Money,  since  the  war,  has  been  tight  in  Siberia;  that 
is,  money  in  large  sums.  In  Irkutsk,  twenty  per  cent, 
interest  is  demanded,  though  the  government  rate  is  five 
per  cent.  Rents  are  high.  The  cost  of  living  is  not  ex- 
cessive if  one  is  contented  not  to  live  high.  The  hotels 
have  a  moderate  tariff:  our  bill  for  the  two  of  us  for  a 
fortnight  was  only  about  $90. 

There  are  thirty  Greek  churches  in  the  city,  two  syna- 
gogues, one  Roman  Catholic  and  one  Lutheran  church. 
The  cathedral,  the  seat  of  the  Archbishop  of  Irkutsk, 
stands  on  the  square  in  the  center  of  town,  an  imposing 
edifice  with  blue  and  gold  domes  and  outside  murals  under 
the  eaves.  The  Irkutskians  tell  many  spicy  bits  of  gossip 
about  its  erection,  not  the  least  interesting  of  which  is 
that  of  the  contractor  who  made  $50,000  graft  from  the 
building  fund. 

With  its  $160,000  theater  on  the  Bolshskaia,  its  white- 
walled,  soldier-guarded  jail,  its  four  breweries,  its  mu- 
seum, its  orphan  home,  its  military  and  civil  hospitals, 
its  department  store  that  has,  by  the  way,  a  large  electric 
sign,  the  only  one  in  all  Siberia,  its  single  rubble-paved 


92  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

main  street,  and  its  murder  record,  Irkutsk  is  making  a 
fair  bid  for  reputation  among  the  cities  of  the  world. 
Yet  there  are  incongruities  that  bring  a  smile  to  the  face 
of  the  foreigner.  The  fire  department,  for  example,  and 
the  Trkutskians  will  have  you  know  that  theirs  is  the  best 
in  the  length  and  breadth  of  Siberia. 

Fighting  fires  in  the  hithermost  realm  of  the  Tsar  13 
done  in  a  peculiar  manner.  First  you  find  the  fire.  The 
city  is  plotted  into  districts,  each  with  its  engine  house 
and  watch  tower.  On  the  watch  tower,  by  day  and  by 
night,  stands  a  guard  who  scans  the  housetops  for  a  sign 
of  smoke.  When  the  fire  has  gotten  well  enough  under 
way  for  him  to  see  the  smoke,  he  gives  the  alarm  and  the 
engines  dash  out.  One  is  amused  not  so  much  at  the  dash, 
as  at  the  engines.  They  are  primitive  and  the  use  of 
them  is  more  so.  We  went  to  a  fire  one  Sunday  afternoon 
in  Irkutsk.  It  was  close  by  our  hotel,  so  that  we  were 
afforded  an  excellent  view  of  the  arrival  of  the  engines. 
First  came  a  troika  team  dragging  a  hook  and  ladder  car- 
riage. On  it  clung  the  firemen  —  howling  Cossacks  with 
brass  helmets  jammed  down  over  their  ears,  and  carrying 
in  one  hand  —  how  the  symbolism  would  have  stirred  the 
heart  of  Maeterlinck !  —  flaming  torches.  Behind  the 
hook  and  ladder  was  the  hose  cart,  and  then  came  a  hand 
engine  of  the  type  our  grandfathers  dragged  to  fires. 
After  that,  for  two  blocks,  trailed  a  queue  of  water-filled 
hogsheads  on  wheels.  The  cavalcade  passed  us  in  a  cloud 
of  dust  and  accompanied  by  the  yalls  of  the  torch-bearing 
firemen.  When  the  supply  of  water  ran  out,  the  carts 
dashed  down  to  the  river  and  replenished  the  supply. 
This  rather  crude  high-pressure  service  gave  rise  once  to 
a  not  unhumorous  incident  that  the  Irkutskians  tell  with 
great  glee.  During  a  fire  several  years  ago,  a  string  of 
water  wagons  had  gone  down  to  the  river,  had  gotten  the 


IRKUTSK:,  THE  UNKEGENERATE  93 

fresh  supply  and  rmnbled  back.  When  they  reached  the 
fire,  the  water  was  gone.  The  enthusiastic  captain  of 
hogsheads  had  neglected  to  put  back  the  plugs  in  his  bar- 
rels and  had  spilled  his  supply  for  two  blocks  along  the 
Bolshskaia. 

On  the  flats  to  the  westward  of  Irkutsk,  across  the 
Angarar,  stands  the  monastery  of  St.  Innocent,  walled  in 
and  remote,  a  veritable  mine  of  piety  and  legend.  Here 
is  preserved  the  body  of  St.  Innocent,  an  early  missionary 
to  Siberia.  Contemning  the  honor  as  abbot  of  the  famous 
Troitsa  monastery  near  Moscow,  this  good  man  came  to 
the  Siberian  wilds  to  minister  to  the  faithful  there  and 
to  carry  the  Church  teaching  to  the  scattered  tribes.  After 
a  life  of  holy  labor  he  died,  and  his  body  was  buried  here 
in  the  monastery.  That  was  200  years  ago.  The  priests 
in  charge  say  that  the  body  is  as  fresh  to-day  as  when  first 
put  there.  The  devout  natives  believe  this  and  come  in 
throngs  to  worship  at  the  shrine  and  to  kiss  the  cross  above 
the  tomb. 

At  Irkutsk,  by  the  way,  we  fell  among  Danes,  the  men 
in  charge  of  the  outposts  of  the  foreign  service  of  the 
Great  Northern  Telegraph  Company. 

To  a  man,  they  spoke  English  perfectly,  and  they  were 
acquainted  with  the  idiom  and  slang  of  several  English 
and  Scottish  dialects.  Along  with  the  patois  lyrics  of 
France  and  Germany,  they  were  quite  at  home  with 
Chevalier's  most  colloquial  costerisms.  They  had  read 
most  American  and  British  authors  and  they  subscribed 
to  English  weeklies  along  with  the  products  of  the  Danish, 
Russian,  German  and  Erench  press.  A  rather  striking 
example  of  the  difference  in  results  between  our  own  and 
the  Danish  method  of  picking  up  foreign  tongues. 

The  Great  Northern  Telegraph  Company  had  prac- 
tically the  monopoly  of  all  telegraphic  communications 


94  THEOTJGH  SIBEKIA 

between  London  and  Scandinavia,  Scandinavia  and  north- 
ern Russia,  St.  Petersburg  and  Irkutsk  —  on  through 
trans-continental  messages  —  and  Siberia  to  Pekin. 
There  is  an  office  in  Petersburg,  another  in  Irkutsk,  an- 
other at  Kiahkta,  on  the  fringe  of  the  Gobi  Desert,  and 
a  big  terminal  in  Pekin. 

One  night  we  visited  the  Irkutsk  office.  The  G.  N.  T. 
occupies  quarters  in  the  main  Russian  government  tele- 
graph office  of  the  city.  Passing  down  a  long  corridor, 
flanked  by  intercommunicating  halls  full  of  men  and  girls 
and  clicking  instruments,  we  entered  a  spacious,  comfort- 
ably furnished  room,  fitted  up  like  the  president's  sanctum 
of  a  big  commercial  house. 

"  There  are  the  two  Pekin  machines,"  said  Shonebeck, 
pointing  to  a  pair  of  spick-and-span  varnished  boxes, 
picked  out  with  brass  and  enveloped  in  mysterious  wheels 
and  pointers  and  strips  of  paper  and  coils  of  insulated 
wire. 

"  Are  they  direct  ?  "' 

"  Oh,  yes.     Like  to  see  the  route  ?  " 

We  walked  over  to  a  wall  map  and  traced  the  long  line 
across  Asia,  past  Baikal  to  Verknie  Oudinsk,  down  past 
Kiahkta  and  on  and  on,  through  Urga,  and  over  the  cool, 
moonlit  wastes  of  a  thousand  miles  of  the  great  Gobi 
Desert  of  Northern  China  to  Pekin.     A  long,  long  stretch. 

We  returned  to  the  table.  Christensen  gave  a  few 
staccato  taps.  Instantly  straggled  down  the  revolving 
paper  tape,  an  inky  zigzag.  Inside  five  seconds  we  had 
spoken  to  Pekin  and  had  a  reply! 

"  Ask  'em  about  the  weather  down  there  ? "  echoed 
Christensen.  "  Can't  chat  over  much.  .  .  .  There  is  only 
a  Chinese  attendant  looking  after  the  wire  at  the  moment. 
I  know  a  Dane  in  the  office,  though.  I'll  see  if  he's 
about." 


IKKUTSK,  THE  UNKEGENEEATE    95 

His  fingers  twitched.  Back  snapped  the  replj;  in 
Pidgin  English : 

"  Mr.  T.  no  comee  here.     Comee  office  1.30  tomollow." 

While  Pade  got  up  an  exhilarating  rat  hunt  for  Jack 
in  a  wastepaper  basket  full  of  wreathed  tape,  Johansen 
and  Shonebeck  waved  us  the  latest  Illustrated  London 
News  that  lay  on  the  couch.  A  long  message  in  cipher 
had  come  through  from  the  Chinese  Government  in  Pekin. 
It  had  to  be  relayed  on  its  way  to  the  Celestial  Empire's 
ambassador  at  Eome.  The  Chinese  Government  always 
uses  number  cipher  in  communicating  with  its  ministers, 
and  all  its  telegraphic  communications  with  Europe  pass 
through  the  instruments  on  the  table  in  this  room. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  table  were  the  Petersburg  in- 
struments. We  hazarded  the  guess  that  there  were  a  good 
many  breakdowns  on  those  wires  which  pass  across  Asia 
and  eastern  Pussia  alongside  the  railroad  track.     In  many 

CD  *J 

places,  the  poles  —  uncharred  and  uncreosoted  —  tilt  over 
at  sharp  angles.  Many  poles  are  idiotically  planted, 
though  this  is  the  fault  of  the  Russian  authorities  who 
control  the  poles  and  the  maintenance  of  both  their  own 
and  the  G.  IS..  T's  wires,  in  actual  pools  and  water-filled 
swamps,  with  the  result  that  they  have  rotted  through  to 
the  thickness  of  a  baseball  bat  at  the  height  of  a  few  inches 
above  mud  or  water. 

However,  we  were  told  that  breakdowns  on  the  long 
Petersburg  wires  are  of  rare  occurrence,  yet  these  direct 
lines,  through  which  a  touch  of  the  finger  can  flash  an  in- 
stantt'^'^eous  signal  to  the  Russian  capital,  stretch  over  a 
vast  expanse  of  wild  steppe  and  forest  that  can  be  covered 
onl^^in  eight  days  and  nights  by  the  express  trains. 

"  ;^^he  Gobi  lines  suffer  more,"  they  told  us.  "  Sand- 
storms are  often  very  bad  down  there,  and  poles  are  up- 
rooted." 


96  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

A  bell  tinkled.  Johansen  rose  and  went  to  the  table. 
For  a  while  he  was  busy  with  the  clicking  instruments. 
Then  he  rejoined  us. 

"  Have  you  a  match  ?  "  he  asked,  sinking  into  an  arm- 
chair. "  That  was  Rome :  not  very  chatty  to-night,  praise 
be!  Chinese  ambassador  sending  back  his  reply  to  that 
query  from  Pekin." 

Now  since  that  query  had  come  in  to  our  room  from 
the  Gobi  Desert,  sped  across  Siberia  and  half  of  Europe, 
down  to  Rome,  gone  to  the  Chinese  ambassador,  been  ex- 
amined and  replied  to,  we  had  smoked  a  cigarette  and  a 
half.     And  yet  one  prattles  of  Chinese  procrastination ! 

"  What  did  you  do  here  during  the  big  telegraph  strike 
of  the  revolution  of  1905  ?  "  we  asked. 
'  "  Oh,  ran  on  as  usual." 

"  But  we  understood  that  the  whole  telegraph  service 
of  Siberia  was  paralyzed,  that  the  revolutionists  shot  every 
man  who  stuck  to  his  post." 

"  Yes,  it  wasn't  altogether  healthy  from  an  actuary's 
point  of  view,  to  disregard  the  trend  of  events.  Each 
mail  brought  us  anonymous  letters,  threatening  a  good 
variety  of  uncomfortable  and  minutely  specified  deaths 
should  we  stick  to  our  posts.  However,  we  threw  them 
in  the  wastepaper  basket  and  sailed  merrily  on  —  and 
there  the  matter  ended  so  far  as  we  were  concerned." 

This  handful  of  light-hearted,  free-and-easy  young 
Danish  gentlemen  in  voluntary  banishment  the  other  side 
of  Siberia,  is  constantly  doing  some  good  turn  or  other  to 
stray  Americans  and  Britons.  Last  year,  to  record  one 
instance  of  many,  an  officer  of  the  British  army  was  -^^ken 
seriously  ill  with  fever  aboard  an  eastbound  Sibe  ian 
train.  He  was  put  off  at  Irkutsk.  In  his  delirium,  he 
refused  all  medicine,  crying  out  that  the  Russians  were 
trying  to  poison  him.     He  could  speak  no  Russian,  and 


IRKUTSK,  THE  UNREGENERATE    97 

his  doctors  could  speak  no  English.  The  Danes  heard  of 
the  case.  Thej  had  their  work  to  do,  but  one  or  other 
of  them  made  a  point  of  always  being  on  watch  by  his 
bedside  until  his  death.  They  arranged  for  and  attended 
the  funeral  and  burial  in  the  little  Lutheran  plot  of  the 
graveyard  of  Irkutsk.  Then  they  put  in  order  his  pos- 
thumous affairs,  got  into  communication  with  his  widow, 
and  sent  her  all  his  papers  and  effects. 


Chaptee  VII 
SETTLING  SIBERIA 

WE  were  walking  one  day  with  some  of  our  Datski 
friends  past  the  freight  yard  of  the  Irkutsk  sta- 
tion, which  is  across  the  river  from  the  city. 
Just  as  we  left  the  pontoon  bridge  that  the  Irkutskians 
throw  over  the  Angarar  when  all  the  Baikal  ice  has  gone 
down,  we  found  our  way  blocked  by  a  long  draft  of 
freight  cars  being  shunted  off  to  a  siding. 

"  There  are  some  new  Siberians,"  observed  Shonebeck. 
"  Do  you  see  the  stencil  on  the  side  of  the  car  — '  Twenty- 
six  men  or  six  horses '  ?  " 

Squaring  the  station  guard  at  the  gate  of  the  freight 
yard  with  some  small  change,  we  sauntered  along  the 
tracks  by  the  train  that  was  now  pouring  forth  its  occu- 
pants. In  that  long  line  of  box  cars  you  could  read  the 
story  of  Russia's  settling  of  Siberia. 

On  the  immigrant  train  you  see  what  purports  to  be 
civilized  humanity  at  its  lowest  k vel.  You  may  not  quail 
at  the  housing  and  surroundings  of  the  black  races,  but 
you  will  be  unprepared  for  this  degree  of  degradation 
among  whites. 

The  first  car  behind  the  engine  had  a  sinister  aspect. 
Its  windows  were  heavily  barred  and  a  Cossack  with  a 
bayoneted  rifle  stood  on  the  platform  at  each  end.  There 
were  hands  held  out  to  us  from  the  windows  of  that  car, 
hands  that  did  not  reach  far  because  they  were  manacled. 
And  the  faces  behind  them  —  some  were  young  and  hope- 

98 


SETTLING  SIBEEIA  99 

ful,   some  were  hard  and   dead.     It  was  an  arrestante 
wagon. 

One  cannot  travel  a  day  on  tbe  railroads  of  the  King- 
dom of  the  Little  Father  without  encountering  these 
prisons  on  wheels.  Sometimes  they  form  entire  trains. 
This  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  since  thousands  of  prisoners 
are  shifted  about  each  day.  According  to  conservative 
official  data,  those  in  transportation  in  all  parts  of  the 
empire  on  one  day,  February  1,  1909,  numbered  30,000. 

Before  the  coming  of  the  railroad  the  exiles  to  Siberia 
were  obliged  to  tramp  the  entire  distance.  They  and 
their  women  folk  toiled  wearily  along  the  post  road.  The 
journey  from  Tcheliabinsk  to  Irkutsk  and  beyond  Baikal 
took,  in  those  days,  all  of  two  years.  l!Tow  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  a  week  or  so  before  they  reach  their  destination. 

It  was  not  pleasant  to  linger  beside  the  arrestanie. 
Moreover,  the  guards  were  growing  uneasy  at  our  presence. 

On  this  immigrant  train  there  were  cars  for  families 
and  cars  for  single  men.  The  former  were  simply  stables 
on  wheels.  In  them,  three  human  generations  —  grand- 
parents, the  man  and  his  wife  in  their  prime,  the  children 
—  and  the  population  of  their  little  farmyard  back  in 
Russia.  Three  cows  and  half-a-dozen  sheep  lie  in  straw 
and  knee-deep  filth,  munching  hay  and  green  stuff.  Bales 
of  hay  and  straw  are  stacked  to  the  roof,  the  home  of  the 
wandering  fowls  and  turkeys  and  ducks.  A  couple  of  big 
lean  dogs  crouch  in  a  corner. 

A  Russian  log  hut  has  not  much  furniture.  All  there 
is  fits  comfortably  into  a  box  car,  even  when  cows  and 
sheep,  backed  by  a  small  haystack,  swell  the  family  circle. 
Goods  and  chattels  are  disposed  here  and  there,  chairs  are 
placed  around  the  rude  table,  a  lamp  and  even  a  pair  of 
religious  prints  hang  on  the  wall.  Baby  is  installed  in 
her  swinging  cradle  at  the  end  of  a  spring.     The  peasant 


100  THEOUGH  SIBEKTA 

cradle  in  Siberia  is  like  a  meat  scales  and  bounces  up  and 
down. 

The  single  men's  quarters  were  populated  by  an  intimi- 
dating band  of  ruffians,  bare-headed,  bare-footed,  shaggy- 
bearded  creatures  with  flat  animal  faces  and  wild,  blood- 
shot eyes,  one's  conception  of  a  shipwrecked  crew  after  ten 
years  on  the  desert  island. 

Toward  the  tail  of  the  immigrant  train  was  a  coach  of 
dazzling  white  —  the  hospital,  a  very  necessary  adjunct 
to  a  journey  taken  under  the  conditions  and  lasting  from 
one  to  three  weeks.  Through  the  open  door  we  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  brass  and  white  enameled  bed,  a  spotless  white 
counterpane  across  it,  and  surrounded  by  all  the  dainty 
fittings  of  a  private  room  in  a  good  metropolitan  hospital. 
The  uniformed  nurse  sat  by  the  window  embroidering. 

The  clean,  white,  little  room ;  the  bleeding,  shaggy 
brutes  among  their  cattle  in  the  filth  of  the  dark,  mias- 
matic box  cars  next  door ! 

The  first  people  who  went  out  to  settle  Siberia  did  not 
go  of  their  own  accord.  They  came  from  the  town  of 
Uglitch,  and  against  them  was  the  charge  of  having  en- 
raged the  Tsar  by  testifying  to  the  murder  of  Tsarevitch 
Dmitri.  With  them  was  exiled  a  bell  that  had  persisted 
in  ringing  when  the  Tsar  demanded  silence.  It  was 
ordered  to  be  flogged,  its  ears  chipped  off,  and  thus  muti- 
lated, it  was  banished  to  Tobolsk  to  "  do  time  "  wdth  the 
talkative  inhabitants  of  Uglitch.  That  was  in  1593. 
There  is  significance  in  the  incident  because  it  is  typical 
of  one  of  the  methods  Eussia  has  employed  in  settling  her 
territory  in  Asia. 

For  three  hundred  years  Siberia  has  been  a  great  prison. 
For  three  hundred  years  it  has  been  the  darkest  blot  on 
the  escutcheon  of  Christianity  and  civilization.  Tales  of 
Eussia's  exile  system  in  the  past  are  only  too  well  known. 


SETTLING  SIBEEIA  101 

And  thougli  the  revelations  of  Kennan,  of  Prince  Kro- 
potkin  and  of  Leo  Deutsch  have  done  much  to  readjust 
the  conditions  in  the  jails  and  awake  public  sympathy, 
Siberia  is  still  a  great  prison.  Since  1900  the  exiles  to 
Siberia  have  been  restricted  to  political  offenders  and 
those  who  dissent  with  violence  from  the  Orthodox  Faith. 
The  remaining  bulk  of  those  in  prisons  east  of  the  Urals 
are  the  local  miscreants,  the  thieves,  murderers,  forgers, 
etc.  Yet  with  this  new  ruling  in  force,  the  body  of 
prisoners  is  very  great. 

Between  1823  and  1898,  according  to  figures  given  in 
Wirt  Gerrare's  "  Greater  Russia,"  ^00,000  exiles  accom- 
panied by  216,000  voluntary  companions  were  sent  into 
Siberia.  In  the  same  period  187,000  criminal  convicts 
with  107,000  companions  went  out.  Since  that  time,  be- 
tween 1898  and  1912,  157,000  were  exiled  to  penal  settle- 
ments in  North  Russia  and  Siberia.  This,  of  course,  in- 
cludes the  host  of  politicals  banished  for  participating  in 
the  Revolution  of  1905,  though  it  does  not  include  those 
who  served  their  sentences  in  jails.  The  total  number 
of  exiles  in  1909  to  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  amounted  to 
74,000.  These  are  the  figures  of  the  Russian  police. 
Ninety  per  cent,  of  this  aggregate  went  to  Siberia.  Those 
in  exile  in  Siberia  at  this  writing  number  about  40,000. 
Four  thousand  were  sent  into  banishment  in  1911-12. 

Alien  supporters  of  the  bureaucracy  and  those  who  see 
the  country  from  the  windows  of  the  Trans-Siberian  ex- 
press will  be  apt  to  dispute  these  figures.  The  fact 
remains,  however,  that  political  exiles  by  the  hundreds  are 
to-day  being  shipped  out  to  a  living  death.  You  cannot 
go  down  the  rivers,  the  Irtish,  the  Angarar,  the  Yenisei, 
the  Amur  or  the  Lena,  without  seeing  barges  crowded  with 
exiles  en  route  to  the  prison  settlements  in  the  Tobolsk  and 
Yakutsk  Governments  on  the  verge  of  the  Arctic  circle. 


102  THKOUGH  SIBEKIA 

Active  colonization  was  begun  in  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 
tury. The  first  immigrants  who  were  not  exiles  were 
Cossacks  of  the  Don  sent  out  to  make  settlements  along 
the  line  of  the  pioneers.  These  Cossacks,  the  Government 
hoped,  would  serve  a  two-fold  purpose  —  provide  a  mili- 
tary population  and  till  the  soil.  Unfortunately,  the 
Cossack  is  nomadic  and,  so  long  as  he  is  soldiering,  does 
not  prove  a  good  husbandman.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
he  settles  down  to  plow  and  sow  his  fields  and  reap  the 
crops,  he  ceases  to  be  a  soldier.  As  a  colonizer,  the  Cos- 
sack did  not  fulfill  all  that  was  expected  of  him,  but  ho 
accomplished  a  feat  of  more  value.  He  carried  the  Rus- 
sian eagle  to  the  Pacific  and  established  posts  between  the 
Urals  and  the  "  great  ocean." 

After  the  Cossack  came  those  who  had  dissented  from 
the  Orthodox  Faith,  the  Rasholinks,  the  Puritans  and 
Quakers  of  Siberia  to  whom  Eussia  offered  no  peaceful 
habitation.  In  those  early  days  thousands  of  Jews, 
Finns  and  Poles  poured  into  what  is  now  the  Government 
of  Tobolsk.  These  together  with  the  exiles  populated 
Siberia. 

Eussia  is  offering,  at  present,  great  inducements  to 
those  of  her  peasants  who  will  settle  in  Siberia.  It  costs 
nothing  to  emigrate  thither  though  you  do  not  journey  as 
a  convict.  Upwards  of  some  quarter  of  a  million  peasants 
come  out  every  year,  in  consequence,  an  annual  immi- 
gration bulking  many  times  larger  than  that  to  Canada 
from  England,  yet  passing  unremarked  by  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

A  Eussian  peasant  to-day  can  receive  free  transporta- 
tion for  himself  and  family,  his  flocks  and  his  herds  and 
everything  that  he  hath,  from  his  native  village  to  a  settle- 
ment in  faraway  Siberia.  And  there  he  will  be  given 
land  and  loaned  a  grant  for  a  year's  farming  expenses. 


SETTLING  SIBEEIA  103 

Each  male  is  given  forty  and  one-lialf  acres,  care  being 
taken  that  the  region  to  which  he  is  sent  compares  favor- 
ably in  general  characteristics  with  the  land  he  had  known 
in  Russia,  No  taxes  are  levied  for  the  first  three  years, 
and  only  one-half  of  the  taxes  for  the  second  three.  Serv- 
ice in  the  army  is  not  compulsory  among  immigrants  until 
the  end  of  the  first  three  years,  that  is  to  say,  until  they 
have  cleared  their  fields  and  built  their  houses.  More- 
over, the  Government  sees  that  there  is  to  each  family  at 
least  one  man.  Should  the  older  son  die  while  the 
younger  is  in  the  ranks,  for  example,  the  younger  son  is 
dismissed  from  active  service  and  sent  back  to  the  farm. 
If  the  peasant  is  absolutely  destitute,  the  Government  will 
help  in  furnishing  farm  utensils,  payment  being  set  for  a 
later  date  and  on  the  instalment  plan ;  will  give  him  seed, 
and,  should  the  first  crop  be  poor,  provide  him  with  the 
cash  equivalent.  He  is  allowed  as  much  timber  as  he 
needs  for  the  construction  of  his  house  and  barn.  More- 
over, in  order  that  the  new  farmers  may  learn  the  methods 
of  modern  agricultural  and  dairy  methods,  the  Govern- 
ment has  set  up  dairy  schools  and  agricultural  instruc- 
tion stations  and  offers  series  of  prizes  to  be  competed 
for. 

Nearly  the  whole  of  the  region  in  Southern  and  Central 
Siberia  capable  of  sustaining  settlements  has  been  sur- 
veyed and  plotted  by  the  Government  inspectors  who 
assist  the  local  authorities  in  the  distribution  of  the  land. 
There  are  some  thirty  distributing  stations,  the  largest  of 
which  is  at  Tcheliabinsk. 

Under  this  paternal  system,  the  tide  of  immigration  has 
been  growing.  Between  1870  and  1890  only  half  a  mil- 
lion went  out.  Then  came  the  railroad.  Between  1893 
and  1901,  1,318,000  went  out.  In  1908  the  figures 
reached  758,000.     There  was  then  a  falling  off  in  the 


104  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

number  because  the  land  had  been  visited  with  great 
droughts  and  poor  crops  had  resulted.  1910  saw  only 
352,950,  and  1911,  226,000. 

'Not  all  of  the  immigrants  reach  the  station  for  which 
they  set  out.  This  is  due  either  to  the  lack  of  personal 
funds  or  the  temptation  to  squat  in  some  section  that 
pleases  their  fancy  as  they  journey  by.  Thus  100,000 
are  registered  each  year  at  Tinmen,  three-fifths  of  whom 
never  get  any  farther  than  the  Government  of  Tobolsk. 
The  average  peasant  does  not  favor  going  east  of  Baikal 
though  the  Government  is  trying  to  direct  immigration 
thither.  According  to  officials,  the  arable  zone  along  the 
railroad  is  crowded,  and  the  central  steppes,  tilled  as 
they  are  at  present,  visited  with  periodic  droughts  and 
famine,  do  not  justify  more  settlers. 

Of  those  who  go  out,  a  certain  percentage  returns, 
either  unsatisfied  with  the  section  allotted  them  or  else 
unable  to  cope  with  the  exigencies  of  the  climate  and  the 
roughness  of  the  soil.  Thus,  of  those  who  went  out  in 
1911,  80,000  have  returned. 

Siberia's  present  population  amounts  to  about  10,000,- 
000,  a  large  portion  of  which  are  convicts  or  exiles  and 
their  descendants;  a  dwindling  portion  the  native  tribes. 
There  are  about  90,000  Tartars  in  Western  and  Central 
Siberia.  The  Kirghis  and  the  Cossacks  and  the  Siberiaks, 
the  last  the  descendants  of  the  first  settlers  who  married 
the  natives,  are  occupied  with  most  of  the  grazing.  Large 
tracts  of  land  for  that  purpose  are  granted  them.  The 
Tartars  are  Mohammedans ;  their  mosques  are  to  be  found 
in  every  town  of  size  in  Western  Siberia. 

The  Kirghis  are  the  remnants  of  the  old  Turko-Mon- 
golian  hordes  that  at  one  time  threatened  to  overrun  Eu- 
rope, but  which,  as  the  Cossacks  came  farther  and  farther 
into  the  new  territory,  receded  and  were  beaten  into  sub- 


SETTLING  SIBERIA  105 

jection.  The  present  tribes  live  in  yurtas  or  felt  tents, 
and  raise  sheep,  horses,  camels,  goats  and  cattle. 

In  the  neighborhood  of  Lake  Baikal  one  meets  with  the 
Booriats,  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  Barnaoul  and  Min- 
usinsk, the  Kalmucks.  The  Government  is  making  great 
effort  to  induce  these  natives  to  settle  down  to  farming. 
The  establishment  of  a  governmental  instruction  farm  on 
the  edge  of  the  Gobi  Desert  has  not  as  yet  met  with  much 
success  as  these  tribes  are  inherently  nomadic  and  do  not 
prove  good  husbandmen.  According  to  the  latest  reports, 
the  management  of  this  farm  is  said  to  have  been  taken 
over  by  an  American  harvester  manufacturing  company, 
a  concern  which  practically  monopolizes  the  business  of 
farm  machinery  in  Siberia. 

North  of  Baikal  in  the  Government  of  Yakutsk  are  the 
Tunguses,  the  Ostiaks  and  the  Samoiedes,  all  of  them  liv- 
ing by  hunting  and  fishing  much  after  the  manner  of  the 
American  Indian. 

The  Cossacks  offer  a  different  story  than  do  these  native 
tribes.  From  the  very  beginning  the  pet  soldiers  of  the 
Tsar,  these  fearless  troopers  have  been  given  more  advan- 
tages than  the  ordinary  settlers.  In  Central  Siberia  they 
are  granted  sixty  acres  of  land  per  man,  and  in  the  Mari- 
time Regions,  100  acres.  In  Western  Siberia  they  form 
about  ten  per  cent,  of  the  population. 

The  Cossack  government  is  a  thing  apart  from  the  local 
administration  of  affairs.  There  is  a  lietman  or  chief  and 
three  under  hetmen  who  form  a  Military  Board  and  com- 
mand all  the  Cossack  troops  in  Siberia.  The  little  Tsare- 
vitch  has  been  made  Chief  Hetman  of  all  the  Cossacks 
in  the  empire.  There  are  three  classes,  those  boys  enrolled 
for  three  years'  service  at  the  age  of  eighteen;  those  who 
enroll  at  twenty-one  to  serve  for  twelve  years;  and  the 
reservists,  or  those  who  have  seen  five  years'  active  service. 


106  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

There  is  much  talk  in  Siberia  of  the  disbanding  of  the 
Cossack  army  in  order  to  encourage  them  to  take  up  farm- 
ing more  seriously.  From  a  picturesque  point  of  view, 
at  least,  this  will  be  a  loss,  for  no  body  of  men  in  the 
world  ride  with  such  reckless  abandon  or  such  endurance. 
The  weekly  drills  of  the  Cossack  force  on  the  city  square 
in  Irkutsk  are  revelations  to  the  foreigner. 

Russia  has  been  populating  Siberia  now  for  over  300 
years,  with  results  that  do  not  compare  favorably  with 
the  settling  of  other  colonies;  certainly  her  success  is  not 
relative  to  the  opportunities  the  country  offers.  There 
are  three  reasons.  The  country  itself  is  to  blame.  The 
winters  are  severe,  with  a  temperature  falling  often  to 
50°  below  (Fah.)  in  many  spots  of  the  arable  zone,  and 
the  summers  extremely  hot,  sometimes  the  thermometer 
reading  as  high  as  114°  (Fah.)  in  the  same  district. 
There  are  next  to  no  spring  and  autumn.  Moreover,  the 
people  are  lower  in  the  scale  of  civilization  than  those 
who  have  settled  in  the  western  parts  of  America. 

And  the  exile  system,  that  scheme  whereby  Russia  has 
tried  to  fill  up  her  new  land  with  bad  men  or  with  political 
offenders,  and  expects  to  get  thereby  a  healthy,  loyal,  hard- 
working people,  has  much  to  do  with  the  present  state  of 
affairs.  The  Siberians  themselves  realized  this  position. 
In  1898  they  protested  so  violently  against  their  country 
being  a  dumping  ground  for  criminals,  that  two  years  later 
a  law  was  passed  abolishing  banishment  to  Siberia  for 
criminal  offense.  Those  exiled  now  are  only  the  political 
and  religious  offenders,  so  the  officials  assert.  If  this  is 
true,  then  Siberia's  list  of  murderers  and  thieves  must 
rival  Russia's  crop  of  malcontents,  for  the  jails  are 
crowded,  arrestante  wagons  are  seen  at  all  times  on  the  rail- 
roads, and  the  prison  barges  are  kept  busy  as  soon  as  the 
rivers  are  free  of  ice. 


SETTLING  SIBEEIA  107 

Stories  of  prison  abuse  in  Siberia  are  still  related.  Of 
course,  the  treatment  of  prisoners  depends  much  on  the 
personal  equation  of  the  warder  and  his  assistants,  so  that 
abuse  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  exists  in  every  prison  of 
the  world.  That  men  are  flogged,  that  those  condemned  to 
death  are  abused  and  beaten  before  execution,  that  women 
politicals  are  outraged,  that  devastating  contagious  disease, 
torture,  suicide  and  murder  are  rife  in  the  prisons  and 
exile  settlements  is  as  true  to-day  as  when  Kennan  crossed 
Siberia. 

The  Russian  Government,  with  tactful  hospitality,  has 
removed  these  eyesores  from  the  view  of  the  squeamish 
foreign  traveler.  There  are  etapes,  or  exchange  stations 
in  each  city  (these  also  serve  as  city  and  county  jails) 
where  prisoners  are  distributed  and  allotted  their  places 
of  confinement.  They  are  not  conspicuous  for  the  excel- 
lence of  their  sanitation. 

Classification  of  prisoners  is  made  only  between  the 
criminal  and  the  political,  so  that  the  petty  thief  and  the 
murderer  rest  side  by  side  on  the  same  sleeping  bench. 
In  transportation,  however,  there  is  no  distinction.  Thus 
a  university  professor  and  his  pupils,  exiled  for  their 
ideals,  may  have  to  travel  for  weeks  with  the  forger  and 
the  thug ;  and  young  girls,  hardly  out  of  their  'teens,  have 
to  ride  in  the  same  arrestante  with  prostitutes  and  degen- 
erates and  are  obliged  not  only  to  watch  scenes  too  revolting 
even  to  think  of,  but,  as  is  recorded  in  several  authentic 
cases,  they  themselves  to  suffer  pollution  and  disease. 
When  they  reach  the  place  of  final  detention,  the  politicals 
are  kept  apart.  Women  politicals,  by  the  way,  average 
about  one  to  every  twenty  men. 

Each  prison  maintains  a  workshop,  a  crude  infirmary 
and  a  domed,  cross-topped  chapel.  One  marks,  not  vsdth- 
out  the  temptation  to  be  cynical,   that  the  shimmering 


log  THEOUGH  SIBEKIA 

gilded  cross  of  the  Irkutsk  prison  chapel  is  on  a  line  with 
the  sentry  boxes  above  the  stockade  where  stand  armed 
sentinels  ever  on  the  alert  to  shoot  down  their  unfortunate 
fellow  men,  on  the  slightest  provocation. 

Since  the  war,  when  Japan  was  ceded  the  southern  half 
of  the  Island  of  Saghalien,  the  northern  parts  of  the  Gov- 
ernments of  Tobolsk  and  Yakutsk  have  been  used  as  the 
spots  for  exile.  In  this  region  where  the  temperature 
hangs  all  winter  at  forty  degrees  below  zero  (Fah.), 
where,  in  summer,  perpetual  cold  fogs  enshroud  the  land, 
and  in  winter  the  air  is  dull  with  snowfall  —  snow  as  fine 
as  salt  —  up  there  in  little  hamlets  along  the  rivers,  the 
politicals  live  out  their  sentences.  Those  with  only  short 
terms  —  four  or  five  years  —  are  given  $6  a  month  by  the 
Government  for  their  support;  the  life  termers,  however, 
are  not  given  one  Jcopech.  Both  classes  are  permitted  to 
work  if  they  are  fortunate  enough  to  be  able  to  find  it; 
but,  as  one  who  lived  a  time  in  an  exile  village  describes 
the  situation,  "  I  have  seen  nothing  but  worn  faces  of  men 
vainly  going  about  in  search  of  work." 

The  life  termer,  after  having  served  ten  years  of  his 
sentence,  may  come  south  from  the  exile  settlement  and 
live  in  a  town.  This  liberty  applies  to  all  but  capital 
cities.  Those  with  short  terms  can  go  back  to  European 
Eussia  at  the  expiration  of  their  sentences.  In  the  past 
year  many  of  those  who  were  exiled  for  participation  in 
the  Revolution  of  1905  finished  their  time  and  came  back 
to  their  homes. 

Despite  an  army  of  spies,  of  troops,  and  the  rigid  ex- 
amination of  passports  at  the  frontiers,  many  politicals, 
as  well  as  many  convicts,  escape.  It  is  estimated  that 
of  the  157,000  politicals  banished  between  1898  and  1912, 
fully  40,000  have  made  their  way  to  other  countries. 
The  usual  procedure  is  to  be  furnished  with  a  passport 


SETTLING  SIBEKIA  loa 

and  money  by  friends,  and  with  this  to  cross  the  border. 
In  this  manner,  Japan  has  come  to  have  a  large  refugee 
colony,  so  large,  in  fact,  and  so  conveniently  near  Russian 
territory  that  Eussia  has  recently  been  trying  to  arrange 
for  the  extradition  of  political  refugees  from  Japan. 
The  effort  has  not  succeeded  and  the  consensus  of  opinion 
is  that  Japan  will  not  agree  to  such  a  scheme.  America 
at  present  harbors  some  7,000  political  refugees,  about 
1,000  of  whom  reside  in  ISFew  York  City.  It  is  interesting 
to  note,  apropos  of  this  fact,  that  there  are  also  in  New 
York  and  many  other  American  cities  members  of  the 
Oklirana,  or  Eussian  political  spies,  who  mark  the  move- 
ments of  the  refugees  and  report  immediately  for  arrest 
such  rash  souls  as  are  venturesome  enough  to  return  to 
Eussia  for  further  revolutionary  activities. 

The  system  of  making  Siberia  a  dump  for  the  outcast 
and  the  outlaw  has  resulted  in  Siberia  becoming  one  great 
happy  hunting  ground  for  the  thief,  the  thug  and  the 
murderer.  In  one  region,  Trans-Baikalia,  for  example, 
fully  20,000  of  the  population  are  time-expired  convicts. 
The  Government,  wishing  to  settle  that  region,  is  directing 
them  to  that  quarter.  As  no  one  trusts  them,  they  can 
get  no  honest  labor,  so  they  loaf  by  day  and  rob  and  kill 
by  night.  They  usually  wander  about  in  bands,  called 
hrodjagi,  terrorizing  whole  neighborhoods. 

Several  attempts  have  been  made  to  corral  these  ex- 
convicts  and  ticket-of-leave  men  into  restricted  sections 
and  to  induce  them  to  form  little  villages  by  themselves, 
but  the  plan  thus  far  has  not  worked.  In  Siberia  legendry 
there  are  tales  of  villages  hidden  away  in  the  forests 
where  bands  of  escaped  'politicals  and  criminals  have 
established  themselves,  communities  of  God-fearing  men 
and  women.  However  pretty  the  legend,  one  is  prone  to 
doubt  its  reality  as  the  native  has  little  time  for  the  escaped 


110  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

criminal  and  will  often  shoot  him  on  sight.  In  some  dis- 
tricts in  the  neighborhood  of  jails,  the  authorities  offer 
a  bounty  of  a  rouble  a  head  for  each  escaped  person  shot. 
Thus  travel  in  small  boats  on  the  rivers  is  often  fraught 
with  danger,  for  the  farmer  without  discrimination  shoots 
whomsoever  he  sees  floating  past  his  village.  There  was, 
until  recently,  a  colony  of  escaped  prisoners  in  ISTorth  Man- 
churia at  the  junction  of  the  Shilka  and  Argun  rivers 
where  the  Amur  is  formed.  It  was  called  Jeltunga,  and 
for  years  its  3,000  inhabitants  lived  in  peace,  scaring  up  a 
living  by  a  little  farming  and  some  placer  gold  mining. 
The  Russian  authorities,  after  several  attempts,  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  enticing  the  leaders  of  the  community  across  the 
Amur  and  they  were  promptly  arrested.  The  rest  of  the 
inhabitants  were  dispersed  by  the  Chinese  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  the  Russians. 

The  general  attitude  of  the  Siberian  toward  the  convict 
is  that  of  charity.  There  are  societies  to  investigate  cases 
of  prison  abuse  and  organizations  to  provide  food  and  little 
comforts  to  those  confined  in  jails.  So  long  as  a  prisoner 
is  in  chains  under  a  heavy  guard,  the  Siberian  will  speak 
of  him  as  a  "  poor  fellow  "  and  throw  him  a  handful  of 
TcopecTcs,  but  once  he  is  out  of  custody,  he  is  a  "  bad  man  " 
and  in  general  odium. 

The  politicals,  on  the  other  hand,  form  a  nucleus  of  the 
best  people  in  Siberia.  If  they  survive  their  sentences, 
they  come  to  the  towns  and  settle,  opening  shops,  or  study- 
ing, and  entering  into  the  commercial  and  social  life. 
The  other  inhabitants  are  not  inhospitable  to  them.  Tew 
of  the  intelligent  upper  middle  class  families  in  the  Rus- 
sian Empire  are  without  one  or  two  relatives  whose  views 
are  reactionary  and  who  have  undergone  imprisonment 
for  them.  Eor  this  reason,  when  they  have  finished  their 
sentences  they  are  treated  kindly  by  the  others.     We  found 


Kaiiway  guanl.--  arc  a  necessity  along  the    Trans-Silierian 


An  ancstantc  i^agon,  used  for  transporting  criminals 


SETTLIiTG  SIBERIA  111 

that  a  prison  sentence  among  the  better  families  is  looked 
upon  in  much  the  same  light  as  is  an  operation  for  ap- 
pendicitis with  us.  The  fallacy  of  exile  system,  of  course, 
is  that  this  scalpel  of  bureaucracy  does  not  cure  the  trouble, 
for  sentences  in  jail  and  years  in  the  Arctic  penal  colo- 
nies do  not  break  the  spirit  of  the  political.  At  the  ex- 
piration of  his  time  he  is  more  rabid  —  and  more  subtle 
—  a  revolutionist  than  ever. 

While  traveling  through  Siberia  one  meets  with  many 
of  these  iioliticals,  some  of  them  hardly  out  of  tlieir  'teens. 
To  pick  three  from  a  number  in  our  journal: 

Into  the  telegraph  office  at  Irkutsk  one  day  there  stum- 
bled an  old  man.  His  clothes  were  merely  a  bundle  of 
rags  stitched  together  with  twine.  But  his  face  was 
deeply  impressive  for  the  refinement  and  nobility  of  its 
lines,  his  head  for  its  proud  carriage.  His  poverty  and 
destitution  were  obviously  not  his  fault.  He  walked  over 
to  the  desk,  took  down  a  telegraph  blank,  and  then,  with 
a  neat,  cultured  hand,  wrote  his  message.  He  caught 
us  looking  at  him  and  nodded  in  a  friendly  though  sapient 
manner. 

While  riding  cross-country  one  time  we  were  stopped  by 
a  man,  apparently  not  over  forty,  who  begged  alms  of  us. 
He  was  able-bodied  and  capable  of  work.  We  asked  him 
why  he  did  not  earn  his  own  living,  and  were  about  to 
give  him  a  sound  lecture  on  laziness  when  he  handed  us 
his  passport.  It  was  what  is  termed  a  "  passport  of  a 
wolf,"  credentials  that  keep  him  wandering  about  from 
place  to  place  as  did  that  immortal  Jew.  The  people  are 
forbidden  to  allow  him  to  stay  in  one  town  more  than 
twenty-four  hours.  They  may  give  him  food  and  drink 
and  shelter  for  a  short  time,  but  after  that  he  must  go 
on  and  on.  He  had  been  implicated  in  the  revolutionary 
riots  of  1905. 


112  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

The  third  case  is  that  of  a  girl  of  nineteen.  With  her 
mother  and  father  and  two  brothers,  she  lived  in  Kharbin, 
in  the  heart  of  Chinese  territory,  but,  unfortunately,  on  the 
zone  of  the  Chinese  Eastern  Eailroad  that  is  controlled  by 
Kussian  police.  Three  years  ago,  while  talking  to  some 
of  her  school  friends,  sbe  was  overheard  to  lisp,  ''  There 
ought  to  be  a  revolution."  Immediately  she  was  placed 
under  arrest,  and,  without  trial,  thrown  in  prison.  Her 
parents,  cultured  people  of  means,  attempted  to  have  her 
freed  on  bail.  But  the  authorities  would  have  none  of 
it.  She  was  a  political^  they  claimed  —  though  she  was 
but  sixteen  and  the  hair  hung  do^vn  her  back  in  braids. 
For  three  years  this  mere  child  was  subjected  to  "  third 
degree  "  inquisitions,  the  police  believing  her  to  hold  the 
secrets  of  an  empire-wide  revolt  that  would  over-topple 
the  throne.  For  three  years  she  protested  her  ignorance 
and  innocence.  In  the  spring  of  1911  she  was  brougbt 
to  trial  and  sentenced  to  three  years.  Her  attorney 
pleaded  for  the  mercy  of  the  court,  and  the  three  yeard 
she  had  already  served  were  taken  for  her  sentence. 

Your  blood  is  up  ?  So  was  ours !  We  venture  to  say, 
however,  that  even  after  her  awful  experiences,  this 
young  lady's  spirit  is  far  from  broken  and  that  she  will 
serve  —  willingly  —  more  sentences  for  further  political 
activities,  activities  on  which  she,  like  about  ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  educated  youth  of  Russia,  believes  hangs  the 
fate  of  her  nation. 

From  this  motley  collection  of  immigrants,  convicts,  no- 
madic tribes,  political  and  religious  malcontents,  the  Rus- 
sian Government  hopes,  in  time,  to  build  a  united  people. 
There  will  be  Christian  and  Jew,  Buddhist,  Moham- 
medan and  Fire-Worshiper.  There  will  be  white  folks 
and  yellow,  and  the  tawny  of  skin,  many  tribeg  and  many 


SETTLING  SIBERIA  113 

tongues.  Siberia  is  to  be  to  Eussia  what  the  West  is  to 
the  United  States  and  Canada  to  Great  Britain,  part  of 
a  unified  country. 

That  Siberia  to-morrow  may  take  her  place  in  this 
dream  of  empire,  the  Government  is  tapping  its  riches 
and  bringing  them  to  the  markets  of  the  world  by  rail- 
roads constructed  at  enormous  expense.  She  is  sending 
out  missionaries  and  building  churches  to  lead  the  scat- 
tered tribes  into  the  fold  of  the  Greek  Orthodox  Faith 
and  to  inject  into  her  own  people  at  least  a  modicum  of 
respect  for  the  fundamental  decencies.  She  is  planting 
schools  and  fostering  the  new  generation  of  those  who  go 
thither.  She  is  erecting  barracks  and  establishing  troops 
throughout  the  land  to  remind  the  man  in  the  street  that 
"  Eussia  is  for  the  Eussians  "  and  that  his  will  must  be 
the  will  of  the  State. 

Yet  the  day  is  very  far  off,  indeed,  when  Siberia  will 
take  rank  among  the  foremost  colonies  of  the  world. 


Chaptee  VIII 
ON  TO  STEETENSK 

WE  dined  in  the  big  station  buffet  of  Irkutsk  be- 
fore catching  the  night  train  eastward.  There 
is  a  waiter  here  who  speaks  a  little  American 
that  he  picked  up  some  years  ago  on  the  Bowery  —  the 
only  Siberian  waiter  we  ran  across  who  knew  a  word  or 
two  of  anything  resembling  English. 

It  was  about  forty  miles'  run  to  the  shore  of  Baikal. 
At  this  point  one  used  to  have  to  trans-ship  to  one  of  the 
two  huge  icebreakers,  the  Baikal  or  the  Angarar,  and  be 
ferried  across  the  great  inland  sea,  train  and  all,  to  the 
railroad  terminal  on  the  opposite  bank.  But  since  1905, 
a  track  takes  the  train  round  the  rocky  foreshore  of  the 
southern  extremity. 

As  we  crawled  up  her  opposite  shore  at  dawn,  Baikal 
was  a  desolate  sight,  icebound  and  carpeted  with  snow 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  see.  Snow-capped  mountains 
towered  abruptly  to  landward  and  the  groves  of  birches 
along  the  creeks  over  which  we  were  constantly  thunder- 
ing were  smothered  in  deep  drifts. 

iNow,  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Baikal,  we  began  to  see 
many  more  Tartars,  Mongols,  Booriats  and  Chinese. 
Some  would  be  about  on  every  station,  and  they  were 
driving  carts  and  sledges  along  the  trails.  In  the  after- 
noon we  made  a  short  stop  at  a  little  place  called  Tobolga, 

and  here  we  found  one  of  the  only  too  rare  exhibitions  of 

114 


ON  TO  STEETENSK  115 

honesty  to  be  encountered  among  the  Siberian  folk  of 
humble  status. 

One  of  us  had  been  sorting  out  a  handful  of  small 
silver  in  the  buffet,  to  pay  for  a  glass  of  tea.  He  had 
left,  by  accident,  a  tiny  Dutch  coin  on  the  counter.  The 
man  in  charge  of  the  bar  left  his  post  and  ran  a  hundred 
yards  down  the  platform  to  find  us.  He  popped  the  coin 
into  the  hand  of  the  owner  and  returned.  He  could  not 
have  expected  a  tip;  the  little  coin  was  obviously  too  in- 
significant to  have  warranted  that  supposition. 

Slowly  toiling  up  a  gradient  in  the  early  evening,  we 
passed  a  lonely  verst  house.  On  a  pile  of  logs  at  the  side  of 
the  track  near  it  stood  a  mite  of  a  girl,  holding  up  her  dolly 
to  see  the  train  creep  by.  It  was  one  of  those  naked  and 
unashamed  Dutch  dolls.  The  child  was  wearing  a  pink 
flannelette  petticoat.  She  had  taken  off  her  warm  stuff 
skirt  and  held  it  in  her  arms  with  the  pampered  doll's 
bald  head  and  decollete  bust  emerging  from  the  bunched- 
up  frock  waist. 

There  are  9,000  of  these  verst  houses  between  Moscow 
and  Vladivostok.  Convicts  —  good  conduct  men  and 
those  who  have  served  their  time  —  are  in  charge.  They 
are  allowed  a  house  and  a  little  plot  of  ground,  and  they 
must  patrol  their  verst  of  the  track.  But  their  life  out 
there  in  the  wilderness  must  be  very,  very  lonely ! 

It  was  a  mild  evening,  and  a  beautiful  sunset  splashed 
the  heavens  with  salmon  and  green.  As  the  afterglow 
faded  into  dusk,  we  ran  into  a  zone  of  cleared  forest 
where  they  were  burning  out  stumps,  firing  the  ground  in 
great  half  moons  that  cast  a  lurid  glow  across  the  sky  for 
miles  around.  When  the  walls  of  fire  had  swept  on,  pine 
stumps  here  and  there  remained  flaring,  as  though  bands 
of  linkmen  were  passing  through  the  hills. 

At  six  o'clock  next  morning  we  ran  into  Chita,  capital 


116  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

of  Trans-Baikalia.  There  was  no  doubt  about  it  being 
Chita  station.  "  Chita  Station  "  was  painted  up  on  half 
a  dozen  boards. 

" Kargdah  lee  zdes  staheet  po  est?''  we  enquired  of  a 
conductor. 

''  Pyetnats"  he  replied.     Fifteen  minutes. 

We  had  wasted  four  minutes  over  dressing  and  a  rapid 
wash,  so  breakfast  in  the  buffet  was  a  scurry.  The  coffee 
was  much  too  hot  to  drink ;  and  when  we  told  them  to  bring 
us  cold  milk,  they  kept  us  waiting  three  minutes  and 
brought  a  jugful  on  the  boil,  which  was  not  conducive  to 
one's  peace  of  mind.  That  breakfast,  in  fact,  was  a  fiasco, 
and  we  all  but  missed  the  train. 

However,  once  aboard  again,  we  lit  our  cigarettes  and 
settled  down  comfortably  in  our  bunks  to  pass  the  morning 
with  books.  The  train  rolled  over  a  bridge,  and  came  to 
a  standstill.  A  fellow  passenger  explained  that  we  had 
now  arrived  at  Chita,  where  there  was  an  excellent  buffet 
and  a  stop  of  an  hour  and  ten  minutes  for  a  leisurely  break- 
fast. The  other  station  was  only  a  kind  of  preparatory. 
A  thoroughly  annoying  incident  this,  being  cheated  at 
Chita. 

However,  Jack  started  the  day  well.  He  found  a  gray 
cat  —  the  first  cat  we  had  seen  in  Siberia  —  in  the  yard 
of  station-house  156,  and  chased  it  wildly  up  and  down 
the  freight  sidings  cheered  on  by  a  mob  of  sporting  Mus- 
covites, till  a  passing  train  glided  between  hound  and 
quarry  and  gave  pussy  her  escape. 

The  history  of  Chita  is  filled  with  romance.  It  was  but 
a  stockade  in  the  Sixteenth  Century.  By  1826  the  Govern- 
ment set  it  apart  as  a  spot  for  banished  politicals.  Hither 
that  year  came  the  Dekabrists,  those  noble  Polish 
revolutionaries.  They  and  their  ladies,  making  the  best 
of  a   sorry  plight,   started  in  to   develop   Chita.     They 


Booriats,  a  tril)e  of  the  Lake  Baikal  region 


-■Tsr  "%":z-.-  — ::^: .  •^T'Trr '-':'■  '—7-  -1 


Typical  Booriat  faces  and  costumes 


ON  TO  STRETENSK  117 

drained  the  marshes,  set  up  substantial  buildings  and 
formed  literary  societies.  To-day  the  town  still  preserves 
the  memory  of  these  Volkhonskis,  Trubetskois,  Muriavers 
and  ^tsTaryshkins.  The  main  thoroughfare,  Damskaia  — 
Ladies  Street  —  recalls  the  memory  of  those  heroic  women 
who  followed  their  husbands  into  exile. 

On  the  platform  at  Chita  we  passed  the  panting  loco- 
motive and  came  suddenly  upon  that  awe-inspiring  melo- 
drama of  daily  Siberian  life,  taking  the  mails  aboard  a 
train. 

The  post-office  coach,  with  its  crossed  post-horns  painted 
on  its  sides  and  dainty  blinds  of  flounced  Holland  in  the 
windows,  was  up  forward  near  the  baggage  coach.  It  was 
the  town  policeman  girt  about  with  a  sword  and  a  heavy 
revolver  who  blocked  our  path  and  excitedly  waved  us  to 
go  away,  far  away.  It  was  the  two  big  station  policemen, 
also  armed  to  the  teeth,  who  blocked  the  platform  in  the 
other  direction.  Between  them  circulated  three  post- 
office  clerks,  two  of  them  wearing  revolvers,  and  the  other 
with  a  gleaming  butt  poking  out  of  his  greatcoat  pocket. 

The  mails,  in  long,  shabby  black  leather  sacks  laced 
down  one  side  with  a  bright  steel  chain,  had  been  driven 
to  the  station  in  the  dirty,  ramshackle  farm  cart  that  was 
backed  up  near  by.  All  the  parcels  and  registered  mail 
packets  were  dumped  loose  on  the  gravel  underfoot.  They 
had  been  brought  to  the  station,  loose  then,  on  the  floor  of 
the  cart,  a  floor  that  held  at  least  one  crack  big  enough 
for  you  to  put  your  foot  through.  Probably  sacks  are 
more  costly  than  the  services  of  a  handful  of  perambulat- 
ing arsenals;  besides,  there  is  the  gratuitous  dignity  of 
the  scene. 

A  mailing  slot  is  let  into  the  side  of  the  Siberian  mail 
coach.  An  old  woman  had  hurried  do\vn  from  the  town 
that  morning,  to  take  advantage  of  this  opportunity  for 


118  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

late  mailing,  but  the  police  made  her  stand  aside  for  twenty 
minutes  till  the  leisurely  loading  had  been  accomplished 
and  the  massive  steel  doors  of  the  coach  swung  back,  bolted, 
barred  and  padlocked,  before  they  would  let  her  step  for- 
ward and  pop  her  letter  in  the  slot. 

A  few  moments  later,  a  train  came  in  from  the  east,  out 
Mongolia  way,  and  there  descended  upon  us  the  hordes  of 
Tartary.  Quite  200  Booriats,  men,  women  and  children, 
any  one  of  a  score  of  whose  costumes  would  need  a  page 
of  detailed  description,  surged  out  to  the  hack  stand  and 
eagerly  sifted  transportation  bids.  The  tribe  in  its  curi- 
ous hats  and  richly  colored  garments,  the  women  wearing 
in  their  hair  and  dangling  on  cords  handfuls  of  strange 
metal  trinkets  that  would  have  been  the  envy  of  a  museum 
curator,  bargained  fiercely  for  many  minutes  with  the 
istvostchiks  before  resigning  itself  to  a  minimum  rate  of 
forty  kopecks  for  as  many  as  could  crowd  into  each  little 
chaise.  Then  with  yellings  and  howls  and  crackings  of 
whips,  off  galloped  the  entire  station  hack-rank  of  the  city 
of  Chita.     One  wondered  whither. 

At  midday  we  came  to  Karimskaia,  the  little  station 
where  the  track  of  the  Trans-Siberian  bifurcates,  one 
line  —  the  original  Trans-Siberian  —  running  northeast  to 
Stretensk,  the  other  passing  over  the  bridge,  on  to  Man- 
churia and  the  Pacific. 

The  seven  hour  run  to  Stretensk  was  the  most  pic- 
turesque stage  of  the  train  journey.  The  line  followed 
the  Shilka  bank,  now  half  a  mile  of  flat  pasture  or  dense 
willow  swamp  separating  it  from  the  river,  now  creeping 
round  a  narrow  ledge  blasted  out  of  the  living  rock,  with 
the  swirling  ice  debris  grinding  the  face  of  the  cliff  below. 

You  do  not  see  anything  in  the  home  newspapers  about 
small  accidents  —  derailings  and  the  like  —  on  the  Trans- 
Siberian   Railroad,    but   they    are   frequent.     Time    and 


OB  TO  STEETENSK  119 

again  no  steps  have  been  taken  to  buttress  np  the  huge 
crags  that  jut  out  and  even  overhang  the  track  where  it 
creeps  under  the  scarred  flank  of  a  mountain  or  through 
a  rock  cutting.  For  the  most  part,  the  rocks  are  not 
solid.  They  lie,  shattered  into  fragments,  wrapped  in  a 
yielding  packing  of  clay  which  is  crumbled  and  softened 
by  the  action  of  successive  frosts  and  thaws  and  the  peri- 
odical vibration  of  passing  trains.  On  two  occasions  on 
that  journey  between  Chita  and  Stretensk,  we  happened 
to  glance  up  at  the  moment  of  embankment  slides.  Once 
a  couple  of  bushels  of  shale  came  down  with  a  run,  and 
once  a  barrowload  of  soil  and  stones,  with  a  lump  of  rock 
twice  the  size  of  an  alderman's  head,  tumbled  down  to  the 
very  edge  of  the  rails  beneath  our  wheels. 

We  passed  along  the  winding  river  valley,  through  hill 
country  that  reminded  one  not  a  little  of  the  Adiron- 
dacks.  The  snow  had  passed  away  from  the  southern 
slopes  of  the  hills,  leaving  them  tinted  in  washes  of  bistre, 
splashed  with  dark  green  and  golden  lichens.  Now  and 
then,  by  the  river,  however,  came  a  gorgeous  mass  of  color, 
swamps  picked  out  with  the  most  vivid  crimson  and  old 
gold  where  clumps  of  willows  were  sloughing  off  their 
flaked  brouTi  winter  bark.  We  canght  a  glimpse  of  the 
first  welcome  butterfly  of  the  year,  the  familiar  small  tor- 
toiseshell  such  as  is  found  in  North  America  and  the  Brit- 
ish Isles. 

The  hills  reminded  us  that  we  were  in  Trans-Baikalia's 
mining  center  —  though  practically  all  of  that  province  is 
mountain  land.  Every  day  government  and  private  min- 
ing engineers  and  prospectors  are  making  fresh  finds  in 
Trans-Baikalia  and  in  the  Altai,  and  as  yet  only  a  small 
fraction  of  the  great  territory  of  Siberia  has  been  ex- 
plored by  men  with  a  knowledge  of  mineralogy.  These 
facts  should  be  kept  in  mind  by  statisticians  and  those 


120  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

who  see  nothing  but  an  agricultural  future  for  the  coun- 
try. 

Some  indication  of  the  minerals  present,  their  quantity 
and  location,  may  be  gleaned  from  the  following  notes. 

The  Urals  produce  nine  tons  of  gold  annually,  forty  per 
cent,  of  which  comes  from  the  Orenburg  Government  in 
Eussia  proper.  Both  quartz  and  placer  workings  are 
widely  distributed. 

In  Western  Siberia  and  the  Governments  of  Tomsk 
and  Yeniseisk,  however,  placers  are  almost  worked  out. 
Their  output  is  insignificant  and  hardly  pays  for  the 
labor.  There  is  placer  gold  present  in  nearly  every  Si- 
berian river  and  creek.  It  is  found  in  the  tributaries  of 
the  Amur  and  Shilka ;  rich  deposits  along  the  Angarar, 
and  near  the  mouth  of  the  Amur.  Recently  such  rich 
finds  were  made  along  the  Amur  that  the  majority  of  the 
skilled  artisans  brought  out  from  Russia  by  the  Govern- 
ment to  work  on  the  Amur  railroad  construction,  threw 
down  their  tools  and  joined  the  prospectors. 

In  the  south  Yeniseisk  Government  there  were,  until 
recently,  thirty  dredges  on  the  placer  workings  on  the 
Uderi  river.  These  workings  had  been  started  as  long 
ago  as  1834  and  between  that  j)eriod  and  1895  produced 
the  huge  amount  of  30,000  'poods  (1,080,000  pounds)  of 
gold. 

But  it  is  the  Lena  creeks,  up  in  the  north,  that  are 
the  home  of  most  of  the  Siberian  placers.  This  is,  by 
far,  the  greatest  and  richest  placer  gold  field  in  the  world. 
Its  center  is  the  little  town  of  Bordaibo,  at  the  junction  of 
the  Bordaibo  creek  with  the  Lena. 

Quartz  gold,  gold  that  cannot  be  secured  in  paying  quan- 
tities by  the  poor  man,  but  that  needs  an  expensive  cyan- 
ide crushing  plant,  is  also  found  in  the  Lena  creeks,  near 
and  in  the  Urals,  and  north  of  Irkutsk.     Engineers  are 


Pi 

u 

i-L 

a 
be 


m 


U't^ 


.1  'y 


o:n"  to  stretensk  121 

prospecting  for  quartz  gold  near  Stretensk  on  the  Shilka. 
Extensive  deposits  occur  in  the  Nerchinsk  district. 

Silver  has  been  mined  in  the  Altai  for  a  century  and 
a  half,  and  is  not  extensively  found  in  Trans-Baikalia. 
At  Gavrielovsk,  near  Salaiyeer  in  southern  Siberia,  there 
was  a  big  silver  smelting  works,  but  it  has  been  a  ruin  for 
the  last  generation.  There  are  paying  mines  at  Oust 
Kara  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Shilka  below  Stretensk. 
They  are  operated  by  convict  labor,  which,  by  the  way, 
produces  only  half  the  results  you  can  get  from  free  men 
with  profit-sharing  in  view. 

There  is  a  big  copper  mine  120  miles  south  of  Atch- 
insk,  central  Siberia,  the  property  of  the  Yenisei  Copper 
Company,  and  managed  by  a  resident  Englishman. 
Copper  is  also  mined  on  the  Kirghiz  steppes,  east  of 
Tcheliabinsk,  and  there  are  the  large  Sparroski  mines  in 
the  Semipalatinsk  region  of  southwest  Siberia.  There  are 
very  rich  deposits  of  copper  on  the  upper  Angarar,  in 
Trans-Baikalia,  and  south  of  Baikal. 

Plentiful  deposits  of  iron  are  everywhere  in  moun- 
tainous regions,  especially  in  the  foothills  of  the  Urals; 
at  Bratskoi  on  the  Angarar  where  there  is  a  large  mine. 
So  prolific  are  the  Ural  iron  fields  and  so  much  nearer 
Russia  that  capitalists  will  not  yet  sink  money  opening  up 
reserve  Siberian  fields.  In  many  cases  before  this  can  be 
done  on  a  larger  scale,  railway  transportation  will  have 
to  be  more  available.  Iron  mines  of  prehistoric  days  are 
found  in  the  Altai,  relics  of  the  Han  Dynasty  of  China. 

There  are  a  number  of  great  coal  fields  in  Siberia.  Yet 
a  while,  however,  wood  fuel  is  so  plentiful  that  coal  is 
hard  put  to  compete  with  it.  Recently  the  price  of  wood 
has  gone  up  considerably  in  the  bare  steppe  region  around 
and  at  Omsk,  with  the  result  that  Omsk  is  beginning  to 
prove  a  good  customer  to  the  developers  of  mid-Siberian 


122  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

coal  fields.  In  the  Tomsk  district  50,000  tons  are  ex- 
cavated annually.  This  comes  principally  from  Koonetsk, 
two  or  three  hundred  miles  south  of  Tomsk  where  there 
is  a  coal  area  the  size  of  Belgium.  It  has  eighteen  to 
forty  feet  veins.  A  couple  of  years  ago  an  English  en- 
gineer came  out  and  pronounced  this  coal  equal  to  the  T)est 
Cardiff  product. 

Colonel  Savlovski  informed  us  that  he  sells  coal  at  the 
pit  mouth  on  his  Irkutsk  property  at  the  astonishing  price 
of  five  Jcopecks  (two  and  a  half  cents)  per  -pood. 

Salt  is  found  in  the  Barnaoul  district.  Here  there  are 
salt  lakes  of  from  one  to  ten  versts  in  length  in  great 
numbers.  One  hundred  thousand  tons  of  salt  are  taken 
each  year  from  Lake  Koriakiv  in  this  district. 

Mr.  Speight  of  Tomsk  had  an  amusing  story  to  tell  us 
apropos  of  the  Barnaoul  lakes.  A  friend  of  his  bought 
a  big  salt  lake  on  the  supposition  that  it  would  do  as  did 
its  neighbors,  dry  up  when  the  summer  months  came 
around.  Summer  came  and  went.  Every  other  lake  in 
the  district  went  dry,  but  this  recent  purchase  kept  ag- 
gressively full.  'Next  summer  it  was,  if  anything,  more 
full  than  ever.  The  owner  was  a  stubborn  man.  Eriends 
advised  him  to  get  engineers  and  set  them  to  work  drain- 
ing. He  refused  to  listen.  He  refused  to  go  out  of  his 
way  to  make  terms  with  the  lake. 

The  years  came  and  went.  The  embittered  owner  grew 
older  and  older,  and  feebler  and  feebler,  and  the  lake  grew 
more  and  more  aggressive,  until  it  became  positively  inso- 
lent. Thirteen  years  after  its  purchase  it  actually  over- 
flowed in  the  height  of  summer  and  flooded  several  neigh- 
boring pools  that  had  evaporated.  That  seemed  to  break 
the  old  man's  spirit.  Two  years  later,  fifteen  years  after 
his  unfortunate  purchase,  the  old  man  died. 

The  next  spring  his  heirs  came  along  with  men  and 


ON  TO  STKETENSK  123 

machinery,  ran  a  ditch  round  the  lake  and  drew  off  water. 
During  the  Last  year  they  have  obtained  nearly  a  million 
and  a  half  poods  of  fine  salt  from  this  spot. 

Precious  stones  thus  far  have  not  been  mined  seriously 
in  Siberia.  Last  year  numbers  of  emeralds  "were  located 
at  a  spot  on  the  banks  of  the  Angarar.  They  are  found 
also  in  the  Minnisinsk  district  and  in  the  Yeniseisk  Moun- 
tains. 

Diamonds  have  not  yet  been  discovered  in  Siberia.  Ex- 
perts believe,  however,  that  the  diamond  will  be  one  of 
the  many  precious  stones  brought  to  light  when  prospectors 
have  examined  Trans-Baikalia.  This  mountainous  region 
presents  many  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  world's 
leading  precious  stone  districts,  but  as  yet,  it  has  only 
been  toyed  with. 

Amethysts  are  plentiful  in  Siberia,  especially  in  Trans- 
Baikalia  and  the  Altai.  The  Urals  are  rich  in  them. 
They  often  crop  up  quite  near  the  surface  of  the  ground; 
many  are  actually  plowed  up  by  peasants,  though  in  the 
rough  there  is  not  much  to  indicate  their  value. 

But  let  us  drop  the  mineral  data  and  continue  the 
journey  to  Stretensk. 

Nerchinsk  of  mining  fame,  we  passed  in  the  dusk;  and 
shortly  before  ten  o'clock  we  drew  into  the  station  of 
Stretensk,  where  the  rails  of  the  old  Trans-Siberian  system 
cease,  with  symbolic  abruptness,  at  the  foot  of  a  towering 
cliff  of  limestone  that  stands  squarely  across  its  path.  A 
mere  sprinkling  of  small  plank  houses,  the  homes  of  rail- 
road men,  cluster  on  the  steep  hillside  behind  the  station. 
The  town  of  Stretensk  lies  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the 
swiftly-flowing  Shilka  or  upper  Amur,  here  rather  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide. 

After  the  fifty  hour  train  journey  from  Irkutsk,  we  all 
bustled  joyfully  out  on  the  platform  with  hotels  and  nice 


124  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

warm  beds  looming  large  Id  our  thoughts  —  only  to  be 
told  laconically  that,  as  the  ice  was  just  beginning  to  run 
out  of  the  Shilka  and  its  feeders,  the  boatmen  did  not 
care  to  take  any  risks  after  dark,  and  that  everyone  would 
have  to  squat  on  their  baggage  in  the  buffet  room,  like 
good  philosophers,  till  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

You  may  imagine  what  a  scene  that  announcement  would 
have  made  had  it  been  sprung  upon  a  trainload  of  tired 
Americans.  Think  of  the  incredulous  exclamations,  the 
angry  protests,  the  sheaves  of  threatened  letters  to  the 
newspapers;  the  fiery  and  over-adjectival  conversation 
that  would  vibrate  the  rafters  of  the  waiting-room ! 

Russia  can  be  excited  on  occasion,  but  never,  never,  on 
being  confronted  by  delays.  Everyone  took  the  matter 
with  the  utmost  nonchalance.  Neitclievo!  with  a  shrug, 
was  the  correct  attitude.  And  while  the  bachelor  element 
among  us  made  itself  cosy  at  the  tables  with  flasks  of 
vodka  and  nips  of  alleged  cognac,  the  staider  men  gathered 
up  their  wives  and  families  and  encamped  in  nooks  and 
crannies  among  the  softer  constituents  of  the  mountainous 
piles  of  baggage. 

From  a  purely  personal  point  of  view,  it  was  a  ghastly 
night.  Every  now  and  then,  until  dawn,  someone  would 
wade  over  our  sleeping  selves  and  snatch  away  what  hap- 
pened to  be  officiating  as  our  pillow,  mattress  or  leg-rest. 
Three  successive  pillows  and  two  of  the  most  sensuously 
comfortable  back-rests  in  or  out  of  Christendom  were  thus 
torn  away  from  us  in  less  than  an  hour.  And  all  night 
long,  at  intervals  of  a  few  seconds,  someone  would  dash 
into  or  out  of  the  buffet,  through  the  door  that  grated 
loudly  on  its  hinges  and  lapsed  into  a  long-drawn,  prot- 
estant  squeak. 

We  roused  up  at  six.  Bright  sunshine  was  streaming 
through  the  windows.     The  tables  were  still  thronged  with 


ON  TO  STRETENSK  125 

an  eating  and  drinking  crowd.  No  one  showed  any 
alacrity  to  get  out  and  about. 

"  Monsieur,  ce  nest  pas  possible,  je  vous  assure.  A 
Jiuit  heures.  A  huit  heures!"  replied  the  young  lieu- 
tenant with  whom  we  had  been  chatting  last  evening,  when 
we  asked  why  in  the  name  of  common  sanity  it  should  be 
necessary  to  wait  till  eight  o'clock  for  a  safe  crossing,  when 
the  sun  was  already  blazing  in  the  heavens. 

Nevertheless,  we  gathered  up  our  baggage  and  went  out 
to  the  river  bank.  Already,  as  we  had  fully  expected, 
ferries  were  plying  —  two  big,  flat-bottomed  barges. 
From  what  one  could  see  through  the  slight  haze  that 
dimmed  the  far  side  of  the  river,  there  seemed  to  be  some 
hitch  in  embarking  at  that  terminal.  A  large  crowd 
thronged  the  bank  there,  watching  operations. 

In  a  few  minutes,  however,  a  barge  got  away,  and, 
crammed  with  standing  passengers,  came  swiftly  down  in 
a  drift  of  broken  ice.  On  account  of  the  inshore  water 
having  frozen  hard  during  the  night,  she  had  some  trouble 
getting  in ;  and  the  passengers  had  to  be  landed  in  carts. 

By  this  time  our  bank  was  crowded  with  three  times  the 
capacity  of  the  barge,  everyone  eager  to  avoid  a  long  wait 
for  the  next.  Only  by  a  moving  picture  film  and  a  num- 
ber of  talking  machines  could  justice  be  done  to  the  way 
that  barge  took  aboard  her  complement  of  passengers. 

While  the  drivers  lashed  their  horses  down  the  stony 
beach  and  through  yards  of  shallow  ice  mush  to  the  craft, 
fat  men  and  screaming  women,  officers  tripping  over  their 
swords,  three  men  with  dogs  on  leads  that  caught  around 
one's  legs,  and  white-aproned  porters  with  the  set  features 
of  men  going  into  battle  against  heavy  odds,  flung  their 
baggage-encumbered  persons  upon  the  four  small  carts, 
and,  being  fortunate  enough  to  clamber  on,  clung  together 
—  sitting,  standing,  kneeling  —  on  the  flat  and  quite  bul- 


126  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

warkless  floor,  in  a  swaying,  heaving  conglomeration,  like 
a  swarm  of  bees.  To  the  accompaniment  of  piercing 
shrieks  from  the  ladies,  a  stout  merchant,  a  dachshund 
and  two  young  officers  of  the  16th  Siberski  Regiment  were 
shed  into  the  freezing  water  on  the  spasmodic  rush  to  the 
barge.  Jack  and  two  other  dogs  barked  themselves 
hoarse.  A  woman  got  her  skirt  caught  in  the  wheel  of 
the  cart  and  nearly  yelled  the  heavens  down  at  the  im- 
minent prospect  of  having  that  garment  ripped  off  her 
back  should  the  horse  elect  to  make  a  move  before  she  had 
been  disentangled.  And  when  our  cartload  had  got 
aboard,  another  dog  sprang  over  the  side  of  the  barge  and 
swam  ashore,  its  master  vainly  beseeching  the  populace, 
with  all  the  strength  of  his  lungs,  to  drive  it  back.  Mean- 
while the  drivers  and  the  navigators  of  the  barge  were 
exchanging  clamorous  incivilities  concerning  the  inability 
of  the  latter  to  bring  their  craft  broadside  on  to  the  thick 
ice.  And  from  the  shore,  to  add  a  finishing  touch  to  the 
pandemonium,  came  wild  and  eminently  justifiable 
laughter. 

Eventually  men,  women  and  children,  dogs  and  bag- 
gage, were  jammed  tightly  into  every  square  foot  of  the 
ferry,  and  off  we  started  up  stream,  swaying  dangerously. 

The  current  was  very  swift,  and  at  every  few  yards  we 
bumped  heavily  into  a  huge  chunk  of  passing  ice.  Tor- 
rents of  advice,  good,  bad,  and  merely  silly,  were  poured 
upon  the  three  stalwart  moudjihs  who  poled  us.  Like 
the  humble  worm  in  the  proverb,  at  length,  they  turned 
and  began  to  ladle  out  acrimonious  back-chat  to  some  of 
the  more  fatuous  grumblers.  Then  the  barge  took  sides, 
some  of  us  standing  up  for  the  protesting  passengers, 
some  for  the  bargees. 

Meanwhile,  we  were,  of  course,  not  only  making  no 
headway,  but  we  were  actually  drifting  back.     Presently 


OK  TO  STRETENSK  127 

we  found  ourselves  face  to  face  with  another  crisis  — 
which  side  of  an  approaching  floe  to  make  for  ?  Whether 
there  would  be  enough  water  in  that  channel  to  float  us  ? 
Whether  it  would  be  better  to  land  here  or  there  ?  Twice 
we  all  but  capsized,  on  account  of  a  woman  in  the  stern 
backing  like  a  startled  prawn  when  a  dog  put  its  wet 
paws  on  her  clean  skirt. 

At  last,  after  a  pantomimic  cruise  of  twenty  minutes, 
we  disembarked  on  a  big  ice  floe  in  midstream,  crossed  a 
hundred  yards  of  it  afoot,  and  entered  another  barge  that 
took  us  over  the  narrow  channel  along  the  town  bank  to 
shore  in  Stretensk. 


Chapteb  IX 
STRETEXSK  IN  TEANS-BAIKALIA 

STRETENSK  in  Trans-Baikalia  ought  to  gain  in  pop- 
ularity with  travelers  as  the  years  roll  on,  for  it  is 
one  of  the  rare  spots  in  Siberia  where  you  are  not 
pounced  upon  to  produce  a  passport  before  any  law- 
abiding  hotel  will  have  anything  to  do  with  you. 

The  little  Cossack  town  straggles  for  a  couple  of  miles 
or  so  along  the  southern  bank  of  the  Shilka,  springing 
up  under  the  flank  of  a  forest-clad  mountain  and  fading 
down  to  a  welter  of  barracks  and  dust-smothered  drilling 
grounds  to  the  northeast. 

There  are  only  some  6,000  persons  in  Stretensk  to-day, 
but  after  Chita,  it  is  the  most  important  town  in  Trans- 
Baikalia.  A  couple  of  thousand  soldiers,  in  addition  to 
the  6,000  civilians,  are  quartered  in  the  barracks,  which 
are  only  a  day's  train  journey  from  Manchuria.  And  the 
garrison  is  being  augmented  every  month.  When  the 
big  Chinese  attack  on  defenceless  Ivharbin,  expected  by 
all  Russians  in  the  Far  East,  comes  to  startle  the  world, 
Stretensk  will  be  able  to  rush  thousands  of  men  to  that 
city  in  less  than  forty-eight  hours,  two  days  before  the 
vanguard  of  the  Irkutsk  garrison  arrives.  The  presence 
of  troops  in  this  region,  it  might  be  added,  is  not  without 
significance.  Russia  is  said  to  have  500,000  men  east  of 
Baikal.  Barracks  are  building  all  along  the  line  of 
Northern  Manchuria  —  at  Chita,  at  Nerchinsk,  at  Stre- 
tensk, at  Blagowestchensk. 

128 


STEETENSK  IN  TEANS-BAIKALIA       129 

The  incursion  of  foreigners  to  Stretensk  is  a  rare  event. 
An  automobile  draws  a  big  street  crowd,  ^o  one  speaks 
French  even  in  the  two  banks,  though  a  good  many  busi- 
ness men  and  the  bank  clerks  can  converse  in  German. 
The  only  faltering  words  of  English  —  a  very  few  and 
queer  words  at  that  —  which  will  greet  your  ears,  come 
from  the  lips  of  a  small  boy  in  the  big  -whitewashed  shop 
on  the  water  front  upto^vn.  He  learned  enough  from  a 
mining  engineer  who  had  employed  him  in  ISTerchinsk  to 
estimate  a  bill  of  ours  at  "  feety  "  roubles  instead  of  five. 

D^early  2,000  Stretenski  are  Chinese.  Yet  you  never 
see  a  Chinese  woman  or  child,  even  after  passing  some 
time  about  the  cantonments  in  which  their  quarters  are 
located.  On  the  streets,  you  are  rarely  out  of  sight  of  a 
Chinaman.  In  the  very  heart  of  the  town  where  the 
Celestials  inhabit  log  huts  around  wide-gated  yards  back 
of  the  Russian  shops,  you  can  find  yourself  out  of  sight 
of  any  white  man  for  several  minutes,  surrounded  only 
by  the  Chinese.  They  do  the  unskilled  manual  labor  of 
the  town,  much  as  the  Italians  and  Sicilians  are  utilized 
along  the  east  coast  of  the  United  States  to-day.  Many, 
too,  are  carpenters,  tall  cheery  fellows,  laughing  the  day 
long  and  always  chattering  away  in  their  thin,  high-pitched 
palatal  tongue. 

During  the  recent  plague  outbreak  around  Kharbin, 
the  Chinese  of  Stretensk  were  badly  hit,  for  not  only 
would  Russians  cross  to  the  other  side  of  the  road  when 
they  saw  a  Celestial  approaching,  but  Chinese  were  not 
allowed  inside  most  of  the  shops  and  no  employer  would 
give  them  work. 

It  was  just  at  the  Russian  Easter,  thirteen  days  after 
ours,  that  we  were  in  Stretensk.  A  spirit  of  something 
approaching  animation  pervaded  the  shops  and  markets. 
There  are  no  large  plate-glass  shop  fronts  in  this  town. 


130  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

It  is  a  haunt  of  small  and  dirty  general  stores.  As  over 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  inhabitants  are  quite  illiterate,  each 
shop  hangs  outside  a  big  board  with  painted  pictures  of 
lurid  hams  or  deformed  boots  or  wonderfully  cut  suits  of 
clothes  and  strange  cooking  utensils.  Among  the  Russian 
shops  are  the  Chinese  booths,  opium  smoking  and  tea  drink- 
ing dens,  each  of  the  latter  with  a  projecting  pole  from  the 
tip  of  which  dangles  a  piece  of  wood  painted  with  a  little 
blue  teapot  on  a  red  stool.  The  Chinese  stores  make  no 
display  of  goods  in  their  windows.  Everything  is  kept  in 
mysterious  sacks  within. 

The  streets  are  unlighted,  unpaved,  uncleaned  and 
ankle-deep  in  fine  dust.  The  high  winds  sweeping 
through  them  raise  such  dust  storms  as  to  obscure  objects  a 
few  feet  away,  and,  some  days,  to  clear  every  person  off 
them  as  quickly  as  a  thunder  shower. 

Among  the  booths  on  the  water  front  we  found  a 
Chinese  lecturer  with  a  little  entertainment  calculated  to 
combine  amusement  with  sound  instruction.  He  had  a 
gayly  painted  miniature  Punch  and  Judy  show  fitted  with 
three  peep  holes.  Before  them  was  ranged  a  pair  of 
wooden  trestles.  You  paid  your  three  kopeclcs  and  sat 
you  down  with  your  eyes  glued  to  a  hole  and  the  breath  of 
the  eager  unwashed  of  Stretensk  hot  on  the  nape  of  your 
neck  as  they  strove  for  stolen  peeps. 

The  old  Chinaman  gave  a  preliminary  cough,  fiddled 
with  a  row  of  colored  strings  in  the  wings,  and  up  went 
the  curtain  on  the  first  scene  —  four  photographs  tinted 
pink  and  yellow,  just  ordinary  mounted  cabinet  photo- 
graphs of  Celestial  family  groups  such  as  litter  the 
windows  of  photographers  in  the  treaty  ports  to-day. 

The  lecturer  started  off  with  his  rapid  sing-song 
Chinese  patter,  adopting  in  his  tone  the  exaggerated  em- 


STEETEi^SK  IN  TEANS-BAIKALIA       131 

phasis  of  a  man  taking  his  babies  through  the  exciting 
and  harrowing  incidents  of  the  Tale  of  the  Three  Bears. 
That  we  were  obviously  not  natives  of  China  and  that 
our  companion  was  obviously  a  Russian  made  no  dif- 
ference to  him.  The  lecture  was  a  part  of  your  three 
kopecks'  worth  and  you  had  to  have  it,  be  you  Russian, 
American  or  Ethiopian. 

The  second  was  a  crudely  colored  print  of  a  lamasery, 
on  sale  at  most  of  the  market  bookstalls  in  Siberia.  And 
we  were  treated  accordingly  to  a  painstaking  three  minute 
harangue  on  lamaseries,  with  tantalizing  elusive  gestures 
that  were  seemingly  explaining  something  very  curious 
and  interesting  that  goes  on  inside  these  mysterious 
establishments. 

Scene  three  was  rather  a  shock  —  an  advertisement  of 
a  firm  of  Russian  importers,  with  the  steamer  Odessa  tak- 
ing aboard  a  cargo  of  tea  chests  at  a  Chinese  wharf.  On 
the  left  stood  a  tall  tower  of  gigantic  colored  sardine  tins, 
in  graduated  sizes,  resting  naturally  enough  on  the  wharf, 
but  utterly  unsealed  to  the  picture.  It  would  have  been 
interesting  to  know  how  Ling  Poo  Me  explained  them 
away.  Perhaps  he  gave  them  as  a  glimpse  of  the  canned 
whale  industry  of  Canton. 

The  next  scene  took  a  few  seconds  of  special  prepara- 
tion, but  when  it  came  it  was  well  worth  the  hitch.  Up 
went  the  curtain  on  a  fine  pair  of  wings,  carven  out  of  a 
German  beer  advertisement,  with  the  usual  smirking 
tourists,  accompanied  by  a  red  and  white  Noah's  ark  dog, 
sitting  on  mossy  rocks  by  a  plashing  mountain  waterfall, 
quaffing  deep  steins  of  So-and-So's  Renowned  Munich  Ale. 
Between  these  were  sho^vn,  one  after  the  other,  a  pair  of 
Chinese  rice  paper  prints  of  fat  warriors  in  armor,  leap- 
ing in  grotesque  postures  to  intimidate  the  enemy,  and 


132  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

repelling  a  fierce  dragon  and  its  mate.  A  row  of  Parisian 
photographs  in  questionable  taste  concluded  the  perform- 
ance. 

The  Chinese  of  Stretensk  have  their  unfenced  graveyard 
in  a  birch  grove  a  verst  up  the  hillside  behind  town. 
Here  are  a  dozen  or  more  mounds  marked  with  perpendic- 
ular wooden  stakes.  Every  grave  has  before  it  a  little 
heap  of  charred  ashes,  littered  with  the  red  stubs  of  joss 
sticks;  and  on  top  of  the  mound  is  a  handful  of  food 
swathed  in  soft  tissue  paper,  food  lest  the  dead  grow 
hungry.  Fumbling  with  our  cameras,  we  chanced  to  look 
around.  To  our  horror  we  discovered  fox-terrier  Jack 
making  a  hearty  meal  off  the  victuals  he  was  filching  from 
a  number  of  worthy  Celestial  ghosts.  Most  fortunately 
there  was  no  one  in  sight,  or  Stretensk  would  have  been 
several  degrees  too  hot  to  hold  us  that  evening. 

The  nomad  Chinese  in  Siberian  towns  often  have  the 
home  industry  of  cigarette  making.  Now  and  then  they 
pack  several  large  boxes  into  an  antique  Scotch  plaid 
carpet  bag,  and  make  a  round  of  the  homes  and  hotels 
hawking  their  wares.  One  of  these  hawkers  ran  us  to 
earth.  We  sampled  his  cigarettes,  found  them  vile,  and 
refused  to  make  a  purchase,  proSering  a  ten-lcopecJc  piece 
for  the  experiment.  He  refused,  with  a  smile,  to  accept 
it.  During  the  previous  months  we  had  disbursed,  for  in- 
significant services,  baksheesh  galore  to  Americans, 
Britons,  Dutch,  Belgians,  French,  Germans,  Eussians, 
Poles,  Siberians  and  Trans-Baikalians,  but  it  remained 
for  this  humble  Celestial  of  Stretensk  to  be  man  enough 
to  recognize  insufficient  grounds  for  a  tip  and  to  refuse 
one. 

We  have  not  said  much  about  the  amusements  of  Stre- 
tensk. Well,  there  are  none.  ISTow  and  again,  strolling 
concert  parties  or  gangs  of  actors  descend  upon  the  little 


STRETENSK  IN  TRANS-BAIKALIA       133 

town  at  Eastertide  and  during  the  summer,  to  give  a  few 
desultory  performances  before  retiring  to  the  comparative 
whirl  of  wordlj  activities  at  Irkutsk  and  Tomsk.  Some 
days  before  our  arrival,  there  had  been  a  "  Carmen  "  com- 
pany. The  opera  was  presented  in  our  hotel  on  a  stage 
about  fifteen  feet  square,  and  a  single  pianist  undertook 
the  whole  of  the  orchestral  duties. 

There  is  a  decrepit  barn  with  faded  banners  and  posters 
where  some  rash  spirit  once  started  a  moving  picture 
show,  but  the  ^'  kill- joys  "  of  Stretensk  set  their  faces 
against  such  a  display  of  extravagant  gayety  and  the  doors 
had  soon  to  be  closed. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  chief  amusement  to  be  found 
in  the  town,  and  one  we  cordially  and  confidentially  re- 
commend to  anyone  who  may  be  so  fortunate  as  to  find 
himself  in  Stretensk,  is  to  make  a  round  of  the  four  or 
five  photographers'  wall  cases  displayed  on  the  chief 
streets.  As  a  human  interest  menagerie  they  would  be 
hard  to  equal.  It  is  apparently  the  fashion  just  now  for 
grown-up  young  women,  whose  features  are  not  exactly 
conspicuous  for  refinement,  to  get  themselves  photographed 
with  their  hair  loosely  around  their  necks  and  busts,  which 
gives  them  the  distrait  aspect  of  the  heroine  of  a  dime 
novel  melodrama  about  to  leap  to  destruction  off  Brooklyn 
Bridge.  And  why  will  all  the  men  in  the  cabinet  photo- 
graphs seat  themselves  squarely  and  solidly  upon  the  chair 
in  the  center  of  the  picture,  leaving  their  good  ladies  to 
stand  disconsolately  in  the  rear?  The  military  ofiicers 
are  just  as  bad  in  this  respect  as  their  men. 

Easter  Saturday  morning  early  we  went  down  to  the 
post-office  to  mail  some  letters,  and  found  a  great  crowd 
besieging  the  doors,  which  had  not  been  opened.  There 
were  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people  —  officers  of  the 
garrison,  Chinese,  Cossacks  come  in  to  take  the  Easter  mail 


134:  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

back  to  the  barracks,  and  dozens  of  men  and  women  in 
slovenly  Western  dress  in  place  of  the  rough  and  ready 
peasant  clothes  of  everyday  life.  Everyone  seemed  to  be 
sending  Easter  greetings  to  everyone  else  —  letters  or  post- 
cards —  and  there  was  a  heavy  money-order  transmission. 
The  post-office  clerks,  realizing  the  possibilities  of  a  large 
crowd,  were  selling,  in  addition  to  stamps,  sets  of  vulgar 
French  and  German  postcards. 

The  post-office  at  Stretensk  is  an  exception  to  the 
general  rule,  inasmuch  as  it  has  not  women  clerks  to  attend 
to  the  public  though  it  conforms  to  the  point  of  having 
women  at  the  telegraph  counters  upstairs.  The  women 
telegraph  clerks  of  Siberia  are  not  a  lovable  race.  They 
are  generally  sluggish,  tied  up  in  shawls,  homely,  elderly 
and  snappish,  and  they  struck  us  as  remarkably  dense 
of  understanding. 

There  is,  for  instance,  a  regulation  which  requires  the 
affixing  of  the  address  of  the  sender  of  the  wire  to  the 
official  form.  It  should  obviously  be  waived  in  the  case 
of  travelers.  You  explain  to  the  old  lady  that  you  are  a 
homeless  wanderer,  that  you  have  just  left  your  hotel  and 
are  about  to  board  a  train  for  X  or  Y.  That  avails  you 
nothing.  The  Government  considers  that  you  ought  to 
have  an  address,  and  there's  an  end  of  it !  We  only  hope 
that  the  statutes  of  international  law  do  not  provide  for 
extradition  of  the  forgers  of  false  addresses  on  Siberian 
telegrams ! 

Though  much  has  been  done  of  late  years  to  improve 
matters,  the  postal  system  of  Siberia  is  still  a  disgrace  to 
civilization.  Individual  experiences,  of  course,  differ, 
and  one  cannot  prejudice  the  system  from  an  instance  or 
two.  However,  on  the  whole,  it  is  far  from  reliable. 
Foreign  business  firms  trading  in  the  country  told  us  there 
is  a  constant. percentage  of  losses  with  both  their  incoming 


STEETENSK  IN  TKANS-BAIKALIA       135 

and  outgoing  mall.  The  registered  letter  system  may  or 
may  not  be  of  use,  according  to  local  conditions  which 
may  vary  considerably.  So  long  as  a  registered  envelope. 
is  delivered  at  its  destination,  we  were  told,  no  claim  can 
be  put  in  for  the  loss  of  contents  en  route.  Many  reg- 
istered letters  do  lose  their  contents  in  this  manner, 
though  a  Dane  in  Irkutsk  told  us  he  had  sent  a  long  series 
of  dummy  packages  home,  with  a  view  to  "  getting  rich 
quick "  on  loss  indemnities,  and  all  the  packets  had 
chanced  to  arrive  in  Copenhagen  unharmed,  with  a  sicken- 
ing regularity. 

Mail  conditions  are  better,  so  far  as  outgoing  letters  are 
concerned,  in  towns  than  in  the  country.  Any  serious 
and  regular  interference  with  mail  would  bring  all  the 
merchants  of  a  city  about  the  ears  of  the  postmaster. 
Even  then,  registered  letters  frequently  do  go  astray. 

As  to  incoming  mail,  several  of  our  letters  never  reached 
us  and  only  one  of  a  number  of  postcards  was  delivered. 
Bundles  of  newspapers  were  frequently  opened  before 
delivery,  a  few  papers  being  brought  around  at  each  call 
of  the  postman.  The  Academy  was  usually  the  last 
to  arrive,  the  censors  apparently  finding  the  depths  of 
its  erudition  a  formidable  stumbling  block. 

While  in  Stretensk  we  were  privileged  to  see  the  Si- 
berian at  a  time  when  his  religious  fervor  is,  perhaps, 
most  fervent.  It  was  Holy  Week  and  Easter.  On  the 
eve  of  Palm  Sunday  all  the  lights  in  the  houses  were  ex- 
tinguished and  the  people  crowded  into  the  churches.  At 
a  little  desk  in  the  vestibule  each  person  bought  a  candle. 
A  long,  mournful  office  was  chanted  in  the  dark,  and  when 
it  was  finished,  a  light  was  brought  from  behind  the 
Ihonistran,  or  screen  that  separates  the  sanctuary  from 
the  congregation.  One  by  one  the  people  went  forward, 
with  many  genuflections,  and  touched  the  wicks  of  their 


136  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

tapers  to  the  lighted  candle.  Guarding  the  precious 
flames  in  the  hollow  of  their  hands,  they  slowly  went 
homeward  with  the  holy  fire  to  light  their  extinguished 
lamps.  Some  even  brought  lanterns  to  carry  their  candles 
in.  Stretensk  that  night  after  service  looked  like  fairy 
land. 

Beside  this  fresh  light  there  was  given  to  the  faithful 
a  branch  of  cedar,  much  after  our  own  custom  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  palms.  We  were  hardly  of  the  faithful,  but 
each  was  given  a  twig,  and,  with  the  rest  of  the  congrega- 
tion, left  the  church.  As  soon  as  the  street  was  reached, 
the  younger  element  seemed  to  forget  what  the  cedar 
branch  typified  —  or  possibly  it  was  a  religious  custom 
—  and  whenever  they  met  a  friend,  struck  him  on  the 
back  with  it.  One  such  struck  us,  not  on  the  back,  but 
across  the  face,  a  deliberate,  stinging  blow.  We  resented 
it.  In  the  melee  that  followed,  a  policeman  suddenly  put 
in  his  appearance.  It  was  only  after  much  detailed  ex- 
planation and  telling  the  officer  that  Main  Street  of  Stre- 
tensk was  worse  than  Broadway  on  I^^ew  Year's  Eve,  that 
we  were  released.  The  cause  of  the  blow,  we  later  dis- 
covered, is  that  an  American  is  most  decidedly  persona 
non  grata  in  Siberia.  The  Siberian,  as  does  his  Eussian 
brother,  believes  that  Eoosevelt  jumped  into  the  Eusso- 
Japanese  altercation  just  at  the  moment  when  Eussia  was 
about  to  turn  the  tables  on  her  enemies.  And  so  when- 
ever he  gets  a  chance,  the  Eussian  will  take  out  his  feelings 
on  the  stray  American  who  happens  in  his  small  town. 
We  were  glad  to  know  that  we  were  justified  in  thrashing 
that  patriotic  youth  of  Stretensk. 

Eussia  does  not  keep  Easter  as  we  do.  She  extends 
the  celebration  throuc-hout  the  octave  or  seven  successive 
days.  During  Holy  Week,  all  amusements,  music  at 
hotels,  theaters,   and  such  public  frivolities,   are  hushed 


The  Chinese  lecturer  of  Strelensk  aiul  his  aiuUeiice 


The  typical   condition  of  a  main   street  in  a   Siberian  town, 

Stretensk 


STRETEKSK  m  TEANS-BAIKALIA       137 

and  the  populace  gathers  in  the  churches.  When  they  are 
not  at  church,  they  are  generally  busy  in  the  shops,  for 
the  next  week  all  shops  are  closed.  Easter  must  be  a 
gigantic  drawback  to  Kussian  commercial  life.  Business 
is  at  an  absolute  standstill  while  the  devout  celebrate  the 
Eesurrection.  And  such  celebration!  Men  salute  each 
other  on  Easter  morning  with  the  words,  "  Christ  is 
risen !  "  kiss  —  and  then  go  home  to  drink  vodka.  By 
Easter  night  the  town  is  generally  debauched;  and  the 
revels  continue  for  the  whole  seven  days  with  feastings 
and  exchange  of  gifts,  and  gallons  of  vodka.  When  one 
sees,  for  example,  two  priests,  maudlin  with  drink,  rol- 
ling down  the  main  street  in  their  blue  cassocks  shouting 
at  the  top  of  their  lungs  "  Christ  is  risen !  "  he  begins  to 
doubt  the  efficacy  of  week-long  holy  celebrations. 

There  is  another  side  to  the  revels  that  is  quite  com- 
mendable. Each  town  erects  amusements  for  the  young- 
sters to  play  on  —  swings,  giant  strides,  see-saws.  We 
found  them  well  patronized  during  Easter  Week. 

One  day  we  crossed  the  river  and  went  up  a  glen  to  call 
on  Mr.  Otto  Vogler,  the  Danish  manager  of  the  Stretensk 
Brewery,  and  his  charming  wife,  who  has  lived  in  London 
and  speaks  English  well.  We  mentioned  that  our  pass- 
ports had  not  been  asked  for  and  wondered  what  had  be- 
come of  the  police. 

"  There  are  only  two  policemen  in  town,"  replied  Mrs. 
Vogler.  "  Crime  is  rarely  or  never  detected  here.  Matters 
simply  resolve  themselves  into  your  having  to  pit  your- 
self against  the  criminal  who  bothers  you.  The  better 
man  wins.  The  victim  is  buried,  and  there  is  an  end  of 
the  question.     An  arrest  is  not  often  made. 

"  If  there  is  any  serious  trouble  you  send  for  the 
station  police,  the  big,  fine-looking  men  in  the  long  drab 
coats,  whom  you  must  have  noticed  at  the  railway  termi- 


138  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

nus.  The  town  police  are  nonentities,  but  few  ruffians 
care  to  try  conclusions  with  the  men  from  the  station." 

In  the  summer,  when  a  good  many  Chinese  are  em- 
ployed about  the  lonely  little  brewery  buildings,  the 
Voglers  adopt  the  salutory  warning  in  fashion  at  Irkutsk, 
and  discharge  a  shotgun  from  the  window  every  night 
before  going  to  bed  to  show  that  a  warm  reception  awaits 
prospective  raiders  and  cutthroats. 

The  inhabitants  of  Siberian  villages  and  suburbs  live 
always  in  mortal  terror  of  the  hrodjagi,  those  vagrant 
bands  of  escaped  criminals  who  rob  and  kill  at  ease. 
They  will  loot  a  church  or  burgle  a  house,  and  murder 
the  inmates  if  their  work  is  disturbed.  With  about  one 
policeman  to  every  10,000  inliabitants  in  Siberia,  there 
is  little  chance  of  these  outlaws  being  apprehended. 
Trans-Baikalia  has  more  than  its  share  of  hrodjagi.  An 
estimate  made  a  few  years  ago  placed  them  at  20,000. 


Chapter  X 
DOW^  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE 

AT  Stretensk  we  found  farmers  building  a  sturdy- 
boat,  a  boat  with  three-inch  bottom  boards  and  but- 
tressed gunwales.  We  waded  into  the  straw  of 
the  cattle-byre  where  they  were  shaping  her,  surrounded 
by  wondering  little  Siberian  cows  and  black  sheep  with 
white  faces,  and  bought  her  into  bondage  for  our  coming 
conflict  with  the  Shilka  ice. 

The  Why  Not  ?  was  a  stout  little  craft,  eighteen  feet  long 
with  a  beam  of  three,  flat-bottomed,  and  built  rather  on  the 
lines  of  a  gimning  punt.  Into  her  we  packed  ourselves,  our 
stores  and  blankets,  fox-terrier  Jack  and  the  concertina 
that  he  subsequently  destroyed,  two  sacks  containing 
cigarettes  and  tobacco,  sundry  cameras,  field  glasses,  fur 
coats,  sledge-bells,  lint  and  bandages,  revolvers  and  claret, 
quinine  pills,  kettles  and  axes,  twine  and  coal  oil,  cholera 
mixture  and  candles,  the  Old  Testament,  a  work  on  the 
diseases  of  dogs,  an  Oscar  Wilde,  many  onions  and  lumi- 
nous paint.  Shoved  off  by  a  couple  of  passing  Cossacks, 
we  started  on  our  attempt  to  ignore  the  existence  and 
potentialities  of  drift  ice  and  voyage  do^vn  to  the  Man- 
churian  frontier. 

The  ice  was  coming  down,  or  would  be  coming  down 
for  three  weeks  or  a  month,  they  told  us,  but  as  there  was 
a  good  deal  of  fairly  clear  water,  we  banked  on  being 
able,  with  care,  to  take  advantage  of  the  swift  current 

and  rapidly  make  our  way  through  the  narrow  waters 

1S9 


140  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

to  the  junction  of  the  Soimgarl,  where  the  Amur  broadens 
out  to  a  couple  of  miles,  thence  south  to  Kharbin.  We 
were  told  that  the  Shilka-Amur  navigation  authorities  at 
Stretensk  not  only  forbade  all  boat  traffic,  but  even  the 
sale  of  craft  at  the  town  boatyards  until  the  ice  should 
have  disappeared. 

So  we  bought  the  Why  Not?  in  a  village  on  the  op- 
posite bank  and  had  her  hauled  down  to  a  point  below 
town  only  a  few  minutes  before  our  departure.  There 
was  no  time  for  the  police  or  navigation  people  to  realize 
the  situation.  With  our  own  hands  we  slid  her  off  her 
wheels,  launched  her,  and  got  away. 

Downstream  we  ran  into  a  barrier  of  ice  —  the  first  of 
many  —  and  bad  to  crawl  out  on  to  the  eddying  drift  and 
labor  for  a  couple  of  hours  to  get  through.  Then  we 
went  on,  one  of  us  at  the  oars,  the  other  staving  off  pass- 
ing chunks  of  ice  with  the  pole,  till  round  the  corner  we 
came  in  sight  of  a  three-mile  reach,  jammed  and  motion- 
less from  bank  to  bank.     We  landed  and  encamped. 

Day  by  day  the  ground  was  frozen  hard,  so  hard  that 
though  spring  was  well  advanced  in  our  calendar,  our 
axes  blunted  and  could  make  no  impression  when  we 
tried  to  cut  turfs  with  which  to  thatch  our  hut. 

The  night  temperatures,  for  late  April,  were  hardly 
idyllic.  Usually  we  found  a  thermometer  reading  of 
from  14  to  18  degrees  of  frost  inside  our  rude  shelter  on 
awakening  at  dawn.  We  were  handicapped  by  having 
no  tent ;  there  was  none  to  be  purchased  in  the  Siberian 
towns.  At  each  new  camping  place  we  had  to  rig  up  a 
fresh  shelter  of  logs  and  blankets  and  branches  and  stray 
garments. 

The  wolves  were  always  unpleasantly  in  evidence;  in 
the  morning  we  would  find  their  clawed  tracks  all  around 
in  the  snow.     However,  we  took  precautions  to  avoid  a 


•■i 


The  Why  Not?  was  hauled  on  wheels  to  the  river 


Jack,  a  dog  with  individuality  and  a  hatred  of  concertinas 


DOWN  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE  141 

night  surprise  bj  man  or  beast.  Two  complete  circles, 
outer  and  inner,  were  marked  out  with  stout  thread,  and 
sledge  bells  hung  along  them  at  intervals.  In  the  center 
of  the  inner  circle  was  our  shelter.  The  bells  were  of 
two  sizes  and  tones;  nothing  could  approach  us  without 
plunging  into  the  outer  or  inner  circle,  and  each  circle 
had  its  distinctive  clang.  Jack  was  a  plucky  little  beast, 
but  he  did  not  love  wolf  scent  and  used  to  get  very  uneasy 
some  nights,  refusing  to  come  to  bed  and  standing  at  the 
"  door  "  of  our  shelter,  his  back  hair  a-bristle.  On  several 
occasions,  the  bells  rang  as  wolves  brushed  against  them. 
We  did  not  trouble  to  answer  the  bell.  Whoever  hap- 
pened to  be  nearer  the  Colt,  picked  it  up  and  emptied 
three  or  four  shots  in  the  right  direction.  After  that  we 
would  usually  be  free  from  interference  for  the  rest  of  the 
night. 

The  wolf  is  very  much  in  evidence  throughout  Siberia, 
though  in  smaller  packs  than  formerly.  In  the  Salaiyeer 
Mountains  his  tracks  were  everywhere  in  the  snow.  It  is 
really  safer,  they  say  in  Siberia,  to  live  next  door  to  the 
home  of  a  wolf-pack  than  to  establish  one's  farm  miles 
away.  Like  the  fraudulent  company  promoter  and  other 
beasts  of  prey,  the  Siberian  wolf  has  a  penchant  toward 
peace  and  quietness  at  home.  He  does  not  like  to  annoy 
the  neighbors.  When  he  embarks  on  a  marauding  ex- 
pedition, he  trots  off  ten  or  twenty  miles. 

The  Kirghizes,  that  nomadic  tribe  in  Western  Siberia, 
have  no  respect  for  the  wolf.  They  ride  after  him  on 
horseback,  and  instead  of  shooting,  kill  him  by  smashing 
in  his  skull  with  an  axe  or  a  club.  Some  train  hawks 
and  hunt  wolves  with  them. 

The  Siberian  bear,  on  the  other  hand,  is  rather  an 
elusive  individual.  He  occurs  almost  everywhere  near 
mountains  and  forests  but  he  does  not  seem  to  be  plentiful 


142  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

or  malicious.  He  is  seldom  seen  by  the  wayfarer,  and 
rarely,  if  ever,  attacks  a  man  unless  cornered.  The  grow- 
ing demand  for  his  skin"  has  set  a  high  price  on  his  head 
and  driven  him  far  back  from  farm  track  and  log  hut.  A 
decade  ago  bear  skins  could  be  bought  for  eight  or  ten 
roubles,  but  they  now  cost  from  twenty-five  to  fifty,  ac- 
cording to  the  time  of  the  year.  The  scarcity  of  bear 
skin  is  quite  comparable  with  the  scarcity  of  sable.  In 
fact,  a  law  has  just  been  enforced  in  Siberia  prohibiting 
the  killing  of  these  animals  for  the  next  three  years  be- 
cause they  have  become  almost  exterminated. 

Mention  might  be  made,  before  telling  of  the  rest  of  the 
cruise,  of  three  unpleasant  surprises  sprung  upon  us  by 
the  Fates  in  connection  with  our  commissary  department. 

When  laying  up  provisions  at  Stretensk,  we  came  across 
a  particularly  cheap  brand  of  cigarettes  put  up  in  large 
boxes.  The  shopman  gave  us  samples  to  try,  and  we  or- 
dered three  boxes  to  be  sent  around  to  our  hotel.  We 
opened  them  a  few  days  down  the  river,  and  found  them 
to  be  mere  empty  tubes,  ready  for  filling  with  separately 
purchased  tobacco. 

Beware  of  the  cocoa  you  buy  in  Siberia.  Our  tin,  a 
large  one,  turned  out  by  a  Moscow  manufacturer,  was  just 
one-third  full. 

At  Stretensk,  not  caring  to  risk  our  lives  with  such 
brandy  as  was  available,  we  bought  a  flagon  of  something 
yellow  that  stood  among  the  liquors  on  a  wine  merchant's 
counter.  By  studying  its  label  and  the  government  al- 
cohol stamp,  we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  one 
of  the  less  nauseating  of  the  many  kinds  of  doctored  and 
flavored  vodkas.  It  had  a  fragrant  aroma  and  was  not 
unpalatable  as  an  aid  to  thawing  oneself  out  in  the  cold 
dawns  down  the  Shilka  banks.  And  it  came  in  very  use- 
ful, what  was  left  of  it,  at  Ookteechenskaia.     The  grand- 


DOWN"  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE  143 

mother  of  the  household  in  which  we  stayed  was  very- 
crabbed  and  hated  to  cross  the  yard  to  the  store-shed  for 
butter  and  milk  though  she  knew  we  would  pay  many 
times  their  value.  As  the  time  for  every  meal  came  around, 
she  said  she  had  no  butter  or  milk;  then  we  gave  her  a 
nip  of  this  beverage  in  an  egg  cup.  She  tossed  it  down, 
smacked  her  lips,  and  waddled  off  —  to  return  with  what- 
ever we  wanted.  She  got  rid  of  nearly  half  a  pint  during 
our  stay.  Jack,  too,  liked  the  stuff;  we  fed  it  to  him 
on  biscuits  till  he  got  quite  cheerful.  Altogether  we  felt 
that  that  flagon  was  a  success. 

Then,  one  night,  came  a  mining  engineer  to  the  post 
station  of  Ookteechenskaia,  a  Russian  bound  east  for  Oust 
Kara.  He  saw  grandmother  take  her  customary  night- 
cap and  asked  to  look  at  the  bottle.  He  took  a  sniff  at 
it  to  confirm  his  diagnosis,  nodded  his  head,  and  told  us 
that  it  happened  to  be  lavender  water !  Sic  transit 
gloria  mundi! 

The  cold  used  to  wake  us  at  dawn  at  our  first  camp  on 
the  Shilka.  Then  we  would  get  breakfast,  which  was  not 
a  very  simple  matter.  Everything  was  frozen  —  eggs, 
stone-hard;  butter  that  crumbled  like  sandstone,  bread 
feathery  with  frost  and  as  hard  as  rock,  meat,  onions  and 
condensed  milk  quite  hard,  and  sometimes  the  catastrophe 
of  both  kettles  —  the  kettle  and  "  The  Kid,"  its  super- 
numerary —  having  been  left  containing  tea  and  hot  water 
over  night,  and  now,  in  consequence,  being  simply  chunks 
of  solid  ice.  First  we  had  to  unfreeze  ourselves,  and  then 
we  unfroze  breakfast. 

After  breakfast,  as  the  sun  crept  rosily  over  the  opposite 
hills,  we  had  to  go  a-woodgathering  out  on  the  ice  jam. 
There  was  not  much  fuel  around  camp,  but  fortune  had 
favored  us  in  sending  down  a  quantity  of  boatyard  and 
sawmill  debris  among  the  churned  drift  ice.     Up  to  about 


144  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

six  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  night's  frost  held  the  loose 
fragments  sufficiently  firm  to  bear  one,  but  it  was  not 
pleasant  to  venture  out  into  midstream,  some  hundred 
yards  from  shore,  after  that  hour. 

Jack  trotted  out  after  us  and  was  always  first  to  make 
use  of  the  planks  we  took  to  bridge  over  thin  patches. 
At  the  outset  he  was  terrified  by  the  phenomenon  of  ice. 
He  seemed  to  feel  all  the  instinctive  horror  of  a  well-bred 
civilized  dog  at  being  expected  to  cavort  and  caracol  among 
what  must  have  been  glass  to  him,  glass  on  which  you  could 
—  nay,  on  which  you  were  actually  encouraged  to  — 
spring,  and  fall  through  with  a  crash  without  a  spell  of 
durance  vile  in  a  kennel  or  coal  cellar  as  a  sequel.  Then 
he  adjusted  his  cosmos  anew,  and  went  to  the  other  ex- 
treme. He  reveled  in  the  ice,  pranced  on  it,  rolled  in  it, 
smashed  it  with  a  gusto. 

He  took  to  sneaking  off  by  himself  and  taking  his  in- 
quiring nose  for  long  walks  on  the  ice  jam  when  we  had 
returned  from  gathering  fuel.  And  whereas  we  knew  that 
it  wasn't  healthy  to  go  exploring  the  midstream  ice  after 
seven  a.  m.  at  the  latest.  Jack  didn't.  We  would  suddenly 
miss  him.  'No  reply  would  come  to  a  call.  Taking  a 
pair  of  long  planks  we  would  set  out  from  the  shore  and 
presently  find,  crooked  on  to  the  thin  ice  by  a  hole,  a 
couple  of  wet  forepaws  on  which  rested  the  dripping  chin 
and  wistful,  imploring  features  of  a  very  miserable  little 
dog,  cramped  by  the  icy  water  and  on  the  point  of  sinking 
back  helpless.  The  planks  would  be  pushed  out,  one  of 
us  would  wriggle  precariously  along  within  arm's  reach, 
and  effect  a  rescue.  All  this  time  the  soft  mush  ice  was 
melting,  and  it  used  to  be  a  fortunate  return  trip  indeed, 
when  one  or  the  other  or  both  of  us,  did  not  put  a  foot 
and  leg  through  the  ice.  There  was  a  perpetual  drying 
of  boots  and  socks  at  the  camp-fire  on  Jack's  account. 


dow:n^  with  the  shilka  ice       145 

At  night,  of  course,  he  slept  in  the  shelter  with  us. 
He  was  very  popular  as  a  foot  warmer,  though  for  two  or 
three  nights  his  supremacy  in  this  respect  was  threatened 
by  a  tin  bucket-stove  from  which  great  things  were  ex- 
pected. The  drawback  to  the  latter  lay  in  that  as  surely 
as  we  managed  to  fill  it  with  a  happy  conglomeration  of 
glowing  log-butts,  hot  stones,  and  bottles  filled  with  super- 
heated sand,  it  would  be  kicked  over  in  the  night  to  the 
accompaniment  of  agonies  and  yelj)ings  and  many  blisters 
and  a  prodigal  waste  of  words. 

The  bother  of  sleeping  with  a  dog,  however,  is  that  when 
you  subconsciously  attempt  to  pull  up  the  blankets  that 
slip  down  feetward  during  the  night,  you  cannot  move 
them  on  account  of  the  animal  having  planted  himself  in 
their  folds  down  there.  The  position  was  rather  com- 
plicated and  aggravated  by  our  having  one  common  top 
blanket,  an  odd  blanket  over  and  above  the  allowance  of 
each,  a  blanket  in  which  we  both  agreed  to  take  a  mutual 
share.  Whoever  woke  up,  chilled  to  the  bone  —  not  an 
infrequent  occurrence,  lying  on  frozen  ground  and  in  a 
temperature  of  a  dozen  and  a  half  degrees  of  frost  — 
naturally  accused  the  other  man  of  having  taken  his  share 
of  the  common  blanket.  Sometimes  he  had;  sometimes, 
finding  it  loose,  Jack  had  tugged  it  away  for  his  own 
special  comfort,  down  by  our  feet ;  sometimes  the  common 
blanket  got  hopelessly  tangled  with  the  rest.  On  the 
whole,  the  common  blanket  was  a  confounded  nuisance. 
We  do  not  recommend  common  blankets  for  use  in  the 
Siberian  camp. 

Jack's  individuality  blossomed  and  put  forth  fresh  green 
leaves  during  the  journey  down  the  Shilka.  After  having 
received  a  mild  whipping  for  stealing  meat,  he  passed  the 
rest  of  that  day  in  pensive  reveries.  The  next  morning 
we  found  that  he  had  not  wasted  his  time. 


146  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

As  he  had  already  begun  to  take  a  morbid  interest  in 
the  contents  of  the  sack  of  provisions,  watching,  with  bulg- 
ing eyes  and  watering  mouth,  the  production  of  sausages 
and  tongues  and  ham  and  delectable  what-nots  from  their 
unpromising  exteriors,  we  had  decided  to  keep  him  in  con- 
tinual view.  If  we  let  him  out  of  our  sight  for  a  few 
moments,  he  was  sure  to  be  found  sniflfing  around  the  sacks 
with  superabundant  interest  and  eagerness.  When  he 
barked,  however,  we  would  let  him  out  of  the  shelter,  to 
see  what  the  matter  was.  If  it  was  a  false  alarm,  he  would 
trot  right  back  to  us  and  snuggle  down  again  on  our 
blankets. 

Well,  the  day  after  his  meat  stealing,  he  began  to  detect 
an  astonishing  lot  of  suspicious  sounds.  Without  a  mo- 
ment's warning  he  would  leap  up  and  nm  out,  barking 
lustily.  And  instead  of  coming  straight  back,  he  took  to 
being  longer  and  longer.  By  peeping  through  the  flaps 
of  our  shelter  we  found  that  these  false  alarms  were 
deliberate  deceit.  Once  outside,  he  would  bark  for  a  few 
moments,  and  then,  after  turning  an  eye  back  in  our 
direction  to  make  sure  that  he  was  not  under  observation, 
he  would  noiselessly  slide  over  to  the  provision  sacks  and 
investigate,  head  and  forelegs  and  most  of  his  body  inside 
one  of  them.  Presently  we  surprised  him  in  this  undigni- 
fied attitude.  He  emerged  and  gave  a  sheepish,  bewildered 
glance,  as  one  who  would  say,  "  Xow  I  wonder  how  I 
happened  to  find  myself  in  there  of  all  places !  "  But 
henceforth  there  was  a  remarkable  diminution  in  the 
number  of  enemies  and  wild  beasts  to  which  Jack  felt 
constrained  to  go  out  and  give  battle.  We  did  not  punish 
him :  we  only  hoped  he  would  not,  of  his  own  no  incon- 
siderable intuition,  discover  how  much  he  had  gone  up  in 
our  estimation.  But  he  generously  let  the  matter  rest 
there. 


DOWK  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE         147 

Jack  had  strong  likes  and  dislikes.  He  disapproved 
emphatically  of  our  concertina.  We  bought  it  from  a 
Chinaman  at  Stretensk,  and  had  an  optimistic  theory  that 
by  dint  of  perseverance  and  application,  we  could  become 
masters  of  this  homely  instrument  before  the  end  of  the 
cruise.  One  of  us  met  with  early  disillusionment  and  be- 
came a  mere  scoffer.  The  other  affirmed  that  he  had  evolved 
two  distinct  and  coherent  tunes,  indignantly  denying  that 
both  might  most  aptly  be  described,  in  the  euphonious 
phraseology  of  the  insurance  policies,  as  "  acts  of  God." 

At  first  Jack  tried  to  be  tolerant.  He  used  to  sing  to 
the  concertina.  By  no  word  or  act  would  he  let  us  gain 
the  impression  that,  way  in  his  cultured  soul,  he  hated  the 
strains  of  a  concertina.  He  would  throw  back  his  head 
and  yowl  and  yowl  and  yowl,  with  his  nose  tiptilted  to 
the  evening  skies.  But  it  grew  too  much  of  a  good  thing, 
and  Jack  began  to  yowl  less  and  bark  at  it  more.  Once 
or  twice  he  actually  flew  at  the  instrument  and  tried  to 
do  it  grievous  bodily  harm. 

The  end  came  swiftly.  Returning  from  a  long  tramp 
over  the  mountains,  undertaken  to  see  how  far  ahead 
stretched  the  ice  jam,  Digby  heard  an  initial  blare  and  a 
sobbing  concertinian  intake  of  breath,  and  then  arose  a 
verse  of  — 

"  Wenn  ich  in  deine  Augenseh, 
So  schvnndet  all  mein  Leid  und  Wehl 
Dock  vyenn  ich  kilsse  deinen  Mund, 
So  tcerd  ich  gans  und  gar  gesund." 

But  on  the  opening  bar  of  the  refrain  came  discord,  a 
yelp  and  the  sound  of  a  scuffle.  The  next  moment  from 
under  the  flap  of  the  shelter  crept  Jack,  the  concertina 
gripped  firmly  in  his  jaws,  and  pursued  by  maledictions. 
He  bolted  up  the  hill  into  the  bushes. 


148  THROUGH  SIBEEIA 

All  that  day  was  he  absent.  He  returned  as  we  were 
cooking  supper,  somewhat  apprehensive  now  that  the  first 
fine  fever  of  destruction  had  cooled  in  his  veins,  rather 
pinkish  about  the  corners  of  the  mouth,  for  the  ill-fated 
instrument  had  been  clothed  in  cherry-tinted  bellows.  He 
fetched  us  a  wire  spring  in  the  morning,  and  we  forgave 
him. 

On  the  fifth  day  of  this  camp,  more  ice  began  to  come 
down  the  river,  and  the  water  which  had  been  rising  and 
falling  fitfully,  rose  a  couple  of  feet.  More  and  more 
broken  ice  hurried  past;  and  then,  next  morning,  came 
the  main  jam,  the  clearing  of  fifty  miles  of  the  upper 
waters  of  the  river.  We  pulled  the  Why  Not?  on  the 
bank.  All  afternoon,  with  the  dull  boom  of  distant  surf 
on  the  seashore,  the  ice  ground  by. 

That  night  the  river  sank,  sank  lower  than  at  any  time 
that  week.  When  we  woke  the  water  was  almost  clear, 
a  swift  stream  that  bore  a  little  broken  mush  on  the 
surface,  swirling  down  on  either  side  of  the  oily  waters 
of  the  mid-stream  bar,  where  lodged  a  long  line  of  high- 
piled  mounds  of  ground-ice. 

A  few  minutes  after  dawn,  however,  the  waters  heaved 
uneasily  up  and  down  the  bank.  Immediately  they  began 
to  rise.  In  three  hours  they  had  risen  nearly  five  feet, 
and  the  surface  crept  over  the  roof  poles  of  our  rapidly 
dismantled  tent.  First  the  shore  ice  —  great  four  foot 
thick  slabs  of  solid,  translucent  glass  —  began  to  float  o5 
and  draw  into  midstream.  Then,  in  the  course  of  less 
than  an  hour  after  dawn,  the  pack  began  to  get  ominously 
tight.  Great  chunks  of  ice  were  shoved  ashore,  along  with 
shoulder-high  masses  of  dripping  riverbed  sludge  and  peb- 
bles. Soon  afterward  the  Shilka  was  a  solid  jam  of 
swiftly  moving  lumps  of  ice.  There  was  a  new  note  pre- 
vailing. 


dow:m  with  the  shilka  ice       149 

In  place  of  the  dull  grinding  and  bumping  of  the  pre- 
vious evening,  so  suggestive  of  the  surf  boom  on  a  storm- 
swept  bank  and  the  rattling  back  of  the  shingle,  was  an 
all-pervading  rustle,  the  rustle  of  heavy  rain.  For  the 
water  was  thick  with  mush  —  finely  broken  fragments 
from  the  large  ice-cakes.  But  though  muffled,  the  sound 
of  the  surf  and  the  low  thundering  of  prodigious  under- 
water impacts  rose  faintly  through  the  rustle.  Every 
now  and  again,  with  a  splash  and  a  shaking  aside  of 
glittering  cascades  of  water,  a  great  cake  of  bottom  ice, 
torn  loose  from  its  bed  moorings,  would  burst  up  through 
the  surface  rush  and,  colliding  with  a  lightly  pinned  pass- 
ing mass,  would  rise  slowly  up  and  up.  Eor  a  few 
moments  the  pair  would  grapple  like  two  live  things,  each 
reared  four  feet  in  air  with  the  sunshine  flashing  off  its 
dripping  sides.  Then,  with  an  awful  splintering  and 
rendering,  the  weaker  would  slide  back  to  be  sucked  under 
the  churning  waters. 

The  ice  did  not  all  move  at  a  uniform  rate.  Glancing 
across  the  river  one  saw  half  a  dozen  different  speed  chan- 
nels —  like  the  series  of  moving  platforms  at  the  St.  Louis 
Exposition.  A  heavy  pine  trunk,  pinned  under  a  hillock 
of  piled  ice,  would  be  carried  down  at  ten  miles  an  hour 
and  pass  a  brother  similarly  situated,  whose  speed  was  only 
half  as  much.  The  two  would  interlock.  A  moment's 
terrific  strain,  and  crack !  a  splintered  section  of  a  thirty- 
inch  log  would  be  flicked  many  feet  into  the  air,  or  a  wall 
of  great  chunks  of  ice  —  both  trees  unyielding  —  would 
climb  up  on  a  neighboring  floe  edge.  ITow  a  large  build- 
ing trestle;  now  a  boat  or  a  dugout,  or  the  crushed  husk 
of  one;  now  an  unbroken  wedge  of  smooth  surface  ice 
bearing  half  a  mile  of  the  dirt-discolored  sledge  track  to 
Blagowestchensk  and  Khabarovsk;  now  a  big  ash  pile; 
bales  of  hay;  a  tangle  of  half  a  score  of  uprooted  birch 


150  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

trees  would  sweep  by.  And  still  the  water  rose  steadily, 
at  the  rate  of  six  inches  in  fifteen  minutes.  At  breaJifast 
time,  a  sergeant  of  the  16th  Siberski  garrison  and  a 
private  looked  us  up,  drank  tea,  smoked  cigarettes,  and 
helped  us  make  the  Why  Not?  more  comfortable. 

Well,  to  cut  the  recountal  short,  eleven  a.  m.  saw  the  un- 
happy boat  wedged  between  an  unyielding  willow  stump 
and  a  slab  of  ice  as  big  as  a  ballroom  floor.  The  next 
movement  inshore  would  have  crushed  her.  We  could  do 
no  more ;  and  exhausted,  lay  down  on  the  bank  for  a  doze. 

Awakening  at  two  o'clock,  we  found  a  clear  stream  flowing 
between  the  three  furlong  distant  banks,  and  the  Why  Not? 
roosting  in  the  willows,  like  a  bird,  with  many  yards  of  air 
and  up-flung  shore  ice  between  her  bottom  boards  and  the 
water.  Six  men  were  fetched  from  a  neighboring  village 
by  a  vague  demand  for  help.  We  did  not  specify  of  what 
nature,  leaving  their  curiosity  to  let  them  in  for  the  work 
in  hand.  One  brought  a  dog  and  a  gun.  With  levers 
and  rouble  distribution  and  much  gesticulation  and  a  lit- 
tle labor,  the  boat  was  launched  about  five  o'clock  and  we 
recommenced  our  voyage. 

About  sunset  we  put  in  at  a  squalid  little  village  of  log 
huts  to  replenish  the  larder.  The  shop  to  which  a  native 
guided  us  had  neither  sign  nor  window  of  goods.  Half 
the  shop  proper  was  filled  by  a  couple  of  wooden  beds  — 
the  only  bedsteads  we  saw  in  a  Siberian  village  hut. 
Above  one  of  them,  from  a  stout  spring  screwed  into  a 
roof  beam,  hung  a  kind  of  scale  pan.  Invisible  under  a; 
heap  of  dirty  rags,  a  baby  stirred  and  wailed  in  this 
curious  cradle.  It  appeared  to  be  the  thing  for  customers 
to  rock  the  pan  up  and  down  while  their  purchases  were 
being  prepared,  a  rather  clever  method  of  obtaining  free 
soothing  for  one's  infant. 

The  little  shop  was  typical,  in  its  repellent  disorder, 


DOW¥  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE         151 

of  the  small  village  store  of  Siberia.  Quite  a  considerable 
stock  of  goods  that  would  allow  of  neat  display  were  til- 
ted in  untidy  heaps  in  boxes  and  on  shelves.  A  glass 
showcase  on  the  counter  held  tapes,  cotton,  ribbons  and 
stockings,  the  whole  forming  a  tight,  unseemly  mess 
crammed  in  like  a  bolster  flock.  What  food-stuffs  there 
were,  were  cheap.  Milk  was  two  cents  a  pint,  including  the 
bottle,  and  bottles  have  some  commercial  value  in  Siberia. 
A  rich  creamy  butter  at  eighteen  cents  a  pound,  and  fresh- 
laid  eggs  at  a  cent  each  could  be  bought. 

At  dusk  we  reached  a  headland  on  the  southeast  bank, 
and  landing,  encamped  for  the  night.  To  get  ashore,  we 
had  to  clamber  up  a  crevice  in  the  tottering  rampart  of 
flood  relic  shore  ice,  which  threatened  to  topple  over  in  the 
night  and  smash  the  boat.  We  dared  not  let  the  Why  Not? 
far  out  into  the  stream,  on  account  of  the  drift  ice  that  was 
still  coming  do^vn  pretty  thick.  However,  we  took  ashore 
all  stores  and  hoped  for  the  best. 

Finding  the  remains  of  an  old  cattle  pen,  we  soon  rigged 
up  a  good  blanket  shelter,  and,  as  plenty  of  dead  birch 
wood  lay  about,  we  had  a  warm  fire  and  a  big  pile  of 
glowing  ashes  throughout  the  night. 

An  hour  before  sunrise  we  were  up,  and  away  we 
started  directly  after  breakfast.  The  mist  hung  heavily 
over  the  river,  lovely  pink  slants  of  sunshine  cleaving  it 
wherever  a  gap  appeared  in  the  eastern  hills. 

The  sun  rose  higher  and  the  mist  dissolved.  Two  or 
three  pairs  of  startled  duck  flew  up,  and  now  and  then  a 
flock  of  crows  would  rise  jabbering  from  the  cliffs  of  a 
small  mountain  on  the  left  bank  under  which  we  steered. 

Some  versts  on  we  came  in  sight  of  a  cluster  of  log 
cabins,  and,  curiously  enough,  a  grove  of  big  trees  stood 
by  them. 

We  floated  past  in  a  perfect  babel  of  cock-crowing,  ac- 


152  THEOUGH  SIBEKIA 

companied  by  the  lowing  of  cattle  and  the  bleating  of 
sheep ;  a  few  versts  beyond  a  turn  in  the  river  showed  that 
again  we  were  "  bunkered."  In  a  narrow  rock  gorge 
ahead  the  ice  jam  had  packed  tight.  So  there  was  nothing 
to  do  but  make  a  landing  in  a  little  glen  that  nestled  be- 
tween steep  birch-clad  hills. 

It  was  a  pretty  spot  with  long  withered  grass,  banks 
of  moss  and  clumps  of  tangled  willow  shrub,  and  a  bub- 
bling streamlet  of  melting  snow  careering  down  over  the 
turf.  Fortunately,  from  a  utilitarian  point  of  view,  the 
ground  was  covered  with  litter  of  gray  bleached  chips 
from  a  lumbering  base  of  many  years  ago,  so  we  found  an 
abundance  of  fuel. 

We  awoke  on  May  morning  to  find  an  unpleasant  state 
of  affairs.  As  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  up  and  down 
stream,  stretched  a  tight  ice  jam.  Another  big  drift  had 
come  down  during  the  night.  A  bleak  snowstorm  blew 
along  on  the  western  wind  soon  after  dawn.  It  was  cold 
all  that  day,  and,  of  course,  we  had  the  customary  heavy 
night  frost.  The  next  day,  however,  was  swelteringly  hot, 
giving  a  thermometer  reading  of  ninety-six  degrees  in  the 
sun  and  seventy-one  degrees  in  the  shade.  The  big  changes 
of  temperature,  rises  and  falls  of  eighty  degrees  during  the 
twenty-four  hours,  were  very  trying. 

We  had  a  good  opportunity  during  those  days  of  waiting, 
to  notice  the  remarkable  freshness  of  the  dead,  low  herb- 
age in  forest  and  glen.  Instead  of  the  tangle  of  rotting 
stalks  that  carpet  our  own  countryside  in  early  spring, 
Siberian  plant  life  stands  just  as  it  stood  on  that  day  in 
early  October  when  it  was  killed  by  a  sudden  frost  and 
a  heavy  fall  of  snow  settled  softly  above  and  around  each 
erect  spray  of  leaves  and  head  of  blossoms.  Even  the 
flowers,  crisp  and  crumbling  to  the  touch,  remained  just 
as  they  had  been  at  their  death  seven  months  ago. 


DOWN  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE         163 

And  very  beautiful  a  hillside  looks  in  the  morning  sun- 
shine with  its  spotted  wild  arum  and  orchis  leaves,  sage, 
colts-foot,  thistle,  ragwort  aud  willow-herb,  all  with  their 
flower  heads  intact;  the  clusters  of  pale  yellow  bedstraw, 
beautiful  clumps  of  a  low  pink  flowering  shrub,  a  species 
of  larkspur,  and  a  dozen  kinds  of  feathery  grass,  ferns 
and  a  most  delicate  trailing  plant  of  reddish  brown  sug- 
gestive of  smilax. 

Siberian  hay,  too,  keeps  wonderfully  well  preserved. 
In  the  Salaiyeer  district  there  were  bales  of  hay  that, 
when  desiccated,  gave  up  quite  a  botanical  collection,  all 
the  flowers  in  their  natural  colors,  not  in  the  least  degree 
faded.  There  were  pink  and  white  clovers,  thistles,  tansy, 
vetches,  daisies  and  a  number  of  flowers  native  to  the 
country. 

One  morning  we  climbed  up  a  craggy  hillside  above  the 
creek  behind  our  camp  and  among  the  lichened  bowlders 
found  edelweiss,  dozens  of  plants  and  dried  flower  heads 
of  it.  A  man  at  Stretensk  laughed  when  we  told  him. 
"  Yes,  every  year  you  have  your  toll  of  deaths  in  the  Alps 
and  the  Austrian  Tyrol  —  foolliardy  young  men  who  lose 
their  lives  creeping  about  precipices  for  that  poor  little 
plant.  In  Siberia,  the  edelweiss  crops  up  abundantly 
here  and  there  in  spots  over  which  you  could  safely  drive 
in  a  carriage.  There  are  points  even  along  the  Trans- 
Siberian  line  where  edelweiss  grows  on  the  slopes  of  the 
railroad  cuttings." 

In  the  forests  behind  us  we  found  oak  and  elm,  walnut 
and  willow  and  maple,  cedars,  silver  birches,  wild  apples 
and  fir  trees.  The  Shilka,  like  the  Amur  and  Usurri  val- 
leys, is  very  luxuriantly  foliaged. 

During  our  expedition  through  the  country  we  mado 
special  effort  to  become  acquainted  with  the  fauna  of  the 
less  exploited  regions,  the  ordinary,  everyday  little  people 


154  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

of  steppe  and  forest  that  usually  are  noticed  but  casually 
if  at  all. 

Taking  into  consideration  the  scarcity  of  humans  and 
the  limitless  forests,  birds  were  by  no  means  plentiful. 
Crows  of  two  or  three  species  were  most  numerous,  travel- 
ing about  in  great  flocks.  In  some  of  the  villages  of  the 
upper  Amur  they  are  remarkably  tame.  The  perky  house 
sparrow  has  made  himself  at  home  among  the  populated 
zones.  Owls  are  not  plentiful,  though  we  were  shown  a 
number  of  stuffed  specimens.  A  species  of  large  falcon 
was  very  plentiful  along  the  rocky  wooded  hills,  but  we 
did  not  come  across  any  eagles  or  information  about  their 
proximity.  Wagtails  were  quite  numerous.  Wild  ducks 
were  hardly  scarce  as  we  struck  them  in  great  flocks  here 
on  the  Shilka.  .  Soon  after  dawn,  on  the  morning  of  April 
20th,  we  have  a  record  that  the  tapping  of  a  woodpecker 
was  heard  among  the  birches  on  the  bank,  and  a  moment 
later  she  whizzed  across  our  boat,  too  swiftly  for  one  to 
catch  her  markings. 

Titmice  of  four  species  were  numerous,  and  the  skylark 
and  linnet  were  encountered.     JSTo  robins  were  seen,  but 
the  bullfijich  was  very  common.     On  one  occasion,  near 
Stretensk,  we  saw  a  heron,  and  later  on,  along  the  Amur, 
herons  were  plentiful.     The  partridge,   we  are  told,   is 
common  in  Siberia,  though  we  never  saw  one.     Quails 
were  met  with  now  and  again:  they  were  very  tame  and 
reluctant  to  take  to  the  wing.     Magpies  were  everywhere 
abundant.     They  were  more  in  constant  evidence  than  any 
bird  but  the  crow.     Cuckoos,  too,  were  very  plentiful  and 
very  tame.     The  capercailzie,  we  were  assured,  was  plenti- 
ful nearly  everj^'here.     It  is  held  to  be  so  tame  and 
spiritless  that  sportsmen  will  not  shoot  it.     In  the  evening 
four  will  roost  on  a  low  pine  branch.     You  shoot  three. 
They  drop,  and  the  fourth  sits  there  stupidly  and  gazes 


dow:n"  with  the  shilka  ice       155 

reproachfully  at  you.  In  this  they  are  suggestive  of  the 
"fool  hen"  of  our  own  Northwest. 

We  noticed  three  or  four  species  of  wild  bee,  all  small 
species,  but  no  wasps.  Hornets  are  said  to  occur  in  Si-, 
beria,  but  the  only  specimens  we  saw  were  in  the  Ural 
Mountains,  a  hundred  miles  from  the  western  Siberian 
frontier. 

Turning  to  the  animals,  ermines  and  weasels  are  com- 
mon in  many  suitable  habitats.  We  were  told  that  the 
Canadian  beaver,  too,  is  pretty  common,  but,  in  this  in- 
stance, our  informant's  description  of  the  beast  was  rather 
crude. 

The  lynx  is  fairly  plentiful  and  widespread  in  distribu- 
tion throughout  Siberia,  chiefly  in  forest  regions.  He  is 
not  feared  by  the  peasants.  The  snow  leopard  occurs  in 
the  Altai,  and,  from  all  accounts,  is  not  a  pleasant  acquaint- 
ance to  make.  Deer  and  elk  are  reported  fairly  plentiful 
though  we  did  not  encounter  them.  Great  herds  of  the 
latter  are  believed  to  frequent  the  forests  south  of  Taiga 
below  Tomsk.  Hares  are  plentiful,  often  occurring  in 
thousands  in  a  confined  area,  but  you  cannot  rely  on  find- 
ing them  wherever  and  whenever  you  want  them  for  food. 
The  rabbit  is  unknown.  The  Siberian  peasant  will  not 
eat  the  hare  as  he  considers  it  to  be  of  the  cat  family  and 
first  cousin  to  the  pussy  of  the  domestic  hearth.  A 
species  of  wild  cat  is  often  met  with  in  the  forests. 

The  mountain  sheep  occurs  in  the  Altai,  two  species, 
Ovis  Ammon  and  Ovis  Poll.  Ammon  is  larger  than  the 
mountain  sheep  of  the  American  Rockies.  Poll's  true 
habitat  is  Turkestan,  but  he  makes  his  way  eastward  from 
that  region.  The  ibex,  too,  occurs  in  the  Altai.  The  yak 
is  found  in  Siberia  proper,  south  of  Biisk.  He  wanders 
about  in  herds,  looking  very  inoffensive  and  domesticated, 
■whereas  he  is,  in  reality,  a  most  savage  brute. 


156  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

The  brown  rat  and  the  house  mouse  are  newcomers, 
introduced  recently  in  freight  consignments  over  the  Trans- 
Siberian  Railroad.  They  crop  up  in  most  towns  on  the 
railroad  zone,  but  have  not  yet  become  a  nuisance.  There 
are  field  mice  of  a  number  of  varieties.  And,  of  course, 
there  is  the  terrible  Ardomys  hohac,  the  Siberian  marmot, 
to  which  the  death  of  50,000  persons  in  the  recent  epi- 
demic of  pneumonic  plague  in  Manchuria  is  attributed. 
Bohac  —  tarhagans,  as  the  peasants  call  him  —  is  prone 
to  attacks  of  pneumonic  plague,  and  coming  out  of  his  hole 
to  die,  was  gathered  up  by  careless  fur  traders  and  brought 
down  on  their  autumnal  trek  to  the  haunts  of  man  to  foster 
and  spread  infection. 

Looking  at  the  reptilia,  eight  species  of  snake  are  be- 
lieved to  occur  in  Siberia.  In  spite  of  much  vigilance,  we 
ourselves  never  saw  a  single  snake  in  the  country  though 
we  found  a  dead  Columber  at  Dairen  in  south  Manchuria. 
Men  who  have  lived  and  traveled  in  Siberia  for  the  best 
part  of  their  lives  told  us  they  recollected  having  seen  only 
one  or  two  snakes  there.  So  it  appears  likely  that  snakes 
can  scarcely  be  plentiful. 

You  have  to  be  very  careful  in  collecting  snake  data 
from  men  unversed  in  natural  history.  For  instance,  we 
were  assured  by  one  Siberian  worthy,  who  shall  be  name- 
less, that  a  brute  of  a  poisonous  serpent  frequented  a 
certain  region.  We  were  duly  sympathetic  and  inquired, 
as  an  afterthought,  "  How  do  you  know  it  was  poisonous  ?  " 
We  were  told  in  reply  that  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  it. 
The  serpent  sat  up  on  the  tip  of  its  tail  and  hissed  in  a 
most  disconcerting  manner ! 

In  the  Salaiyeer  district  poisonous  snakes  undoubtedly 
occur.  Men  who  are  bitten  swell  up  and  exhibit  marked  ef- 
fects. 

In  southern  Siberia  snake  exorcists  exist  and  have  a 


DOWN"  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE         157 

great  influence  over  the  ignorant  peasantry.  In  the  case 
of  a  bite,  the  nearest  exorcist  is  sent  for  post  haste.  He 
arrives  and  reads  a  spell  over  the  victim.  Generally,  as  in 
most  cases  of  snake  bite,  the  victim  recovers.  Then  he 
pays  a  substantial  honorarium  to  his  saviour.  If  he  dies, 
the  exorcist  explains  that  he  must  have  been  an  especially 
bad  lot  marked  by  Providence  for  removal  from  his  un- 
contaminated  neighbors.  The  peasants  do  not  appear  to 
be  the  only  superstitious  patrons  of  snake  exorcists.  At 
the  Konski  Zabot  Savlovski,  Tombeark  stated  that  the 
superintendent  of  the  estate,  the  chief  of  the  biggest  stud 
farm  in  Siberia,  and  presumably  an  enlightened  man, 
used  to  send  for  exorcists  when  horses  were  bitten. 

An  interesting  serpent,  the  largest  Siberian  snake, 
Columber  Schrencki,  often  frightens  the  wits  out  of  the 
peasant  of  south  Siberia.  Schrencki  is  known  to  run  to 
albino  sports.  This  white  snake,  a  big  fellow  several  feet 
long,  is  called  "  The  King  of  Snakes  "  by  the  natives.  To 
catch  his  eye  is  to  condemn  oneself  to  death  within  a  fort- 
night. Colonel  Savlovski  was  once  returning  from  a  long 
hunting  trip  attended  by  a  couple  of  Tunghiz  tribesmen  — 
nomad  Mongols  —  when,  without  a  moment's  warning, 
both  set  spurs  to  their  horses  and  galloped  rapidly  out  of 
sight.     They  were  both  picked  and  brave  huntsmen. 

Three  weeks  later  they  came  back  to  the  Savlovski  estate 
and  expressed  their  condolence  with  the  family  that  the 
gallant  colonel  should  have  come  to  so  sad  an  end  by  run- 
ning into  H.R.H.  Schrencki.  They  were  disillusioned 
and  the  colonel  himself  told  them  to  get  rid  of  their  fanci- 
ful legend.  It  was  no  use.  They  nodded  significantly  at 
each  other,  and  explained  how  glad  they  were  that  this 
particular  royalty  had  been  blind ! 

During  our  journey  we  encountered  many  butterflies, 
among  them  the  Swallo^vtail,  the  Painted  Lady,  Small 


158  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

Tortoiseshell,  Camberwell  Beauty,  large  and  small  whites, 
many  blues,  the  Small  Heath,  Orange  Tip,  Black-veined 
White,  Brimstone  and  a  species  of  Skipper. 

The  big  wood  ant  was  very  local.  We  found  many  nests 
near  Irkutsk,  yet  not  one  on  the  Shilka  banks.  There 
were  many  species  of  small  ants,  some  quite  minute. 

But  enough  of  the  fauna;  let  us  go  back  to  the  camp 
above  the  rock  gorge.  It  seemed  as  though  spring 
were  never  coming.  May  4th  and  not  an  opening  bud  of 
larch ;  not  a  new  spray  of  fern ;  scarcely  a  shoot  of  green 
stuff  underfoot.  Down  below  the  dead  grass,  here  and 
there,  a  scant  showing  of  sprouting  growth;  up  in  the 
head  of  the  glen,  a  few  bronze  leaves  just  beginning  to 
unfold  on  the  myrtle  twigs.  That  was  all  the  vegetable 
life  that  stirred.  That,  and  a  few  tufts  of  purple  dwarf 
ground  sedge. 

On  the  fifth  day  of  our  penning  up  in  this  camp,  we 
awoke  to  find  clear  water  up  and  down  stream.  For  some 
thirty  feet  from  both  banks,  however,  were  gigantic  slabs 
and  chunks  of  ice  firmly  imbedded  in  a  mush  of  broken 
fragments.  The  water  had  fallen  a  few  feet  and  left  this 
barrier  wedged  along  the  shore.  At  the  height  of  the 
flood,  the  Why  Not?  had  been  poled  up  to  the  mouth  of 
the  little  stream  of  our  glen.  There  she  had  ridden  easily 
in  three  feet  of  water.  I^ow  she  lay  high  and  dry  among 
the  ice  bowlders,  twenty  yards  from  and  fifteen  feet  above 
the  surface  of  the  Shilka. 

Getting  her  off  took  a  day  of  exhausting  worE  The 
sun  was  very  hot.  The  waters  of  the  brook  in  which  we 
had  to  labor  were  melted  snow  and  just  as  unpleasant  to 
stand  in  for  hours  at  a  stretch  for  all  the  heat  ashore. 
Moreover  the  guUey  through  which  the  brook  flowed  was 
so  narrow  that  levers  could  rarely  be  used,  and  when  one 
used  them,  they  snapped. 


DOW:^^  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE         15& 

Inch  bj  inch  we  hacked  away  obstructing  rocks  of  ice 
till  the  shaft  of  the  hatchet  broke.  Then  we  took  to  build- 
ing a  dam  across  the  stream,  a  dam  that  leaked  like  a 
sieve  and  was  swept  away  almost  as  fast  as  we  could  run 
it  up.  So  we  dammed  ar.d  dammed  and  damned; 
mended  and  remended  the  hatchet,  and  levered  and  coaxed 
and  pulled  and  shoved,  tilted  and  rocked,  lifted  and 
generally  worried  the  obstinate  craft  from  nine  in  the 
morning  till  late  in  the  afternoon  with  the  happy  result 
of  seeing  her  afloat  on  the  bosom  of  Mother  Shilka  a  short 
half  hour  before  sundown. 

In  ten  minutes  the  camp  was  dismantled  and  packed 
aboard,  and  we  were  off  downstream. 

A  few  versts  on,  and  we  passed  in  the  gloaming  a  noisy 
little  village,  resounding  with  crowings  and  barkings  and 
Heatings.  On  the  opposite  bank,  jagged  black  cliffs 
loomed  sheer  up  from  the  water  to  a  height  of  some  300 
feet,  returning  every  sharp  sound  from  the  village  in  two 
or  three  reverberating  echoes.  Then  dusk  came  quickly 
down  upon  the  river  and  the  red  eyes  of  scattered  forest 
fires  began  to  wink  out  from  the  hills  above  us. 

We  decided  to  put  in  and  cook  supper,  a  simple  enough 
plan  in  theory.  But  we  found  both  banks  choked  with  a 
twenty  foot  bank  of  the  scraped-off  flank  of  the  passing 
ice  jam.  The  waters  had  lowered,  and,  increasing  the 
strain  on  the  uplifted  fragments,  the  quiet  of  the  evening 
air  was  broken  by  constant  crashes,  like  volley  rifle  firing, 
of  lumps  of  ice  slipping  down  into  the  river. 

At  length  we  found  a  hazardous  mooring,  and  after  un- 
loading the  Why  Not  ?  —  in  view  of  a  nocturnal  swamping 
—  we  cooked  our  meal  and  passed  the  night  on  a  little 
six  foot  ledge  on  the  face  of  a  cliff.  In  spite  of  the 
warmth  of  the  day,  we  had  the  usual  several  degrees  of 
biting  frost.     In  the  cold  dawn  we  set  off  again. 


160  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

Soon  after  our  start,  without  the  slightest  warning,  the 
waters  alongside  us  in  midstream  swirled  and  parted.  Up 
shot  a  giant  cake  of  bottom  ice  as  big  as  a  wagon.  It  rose 
less  than  ten  feet  awaj,  its  waves  frothing  over  our  gun- 
wale. The  periodical  bobbing  up  of  these  lumps  of  bottom 
ice,  cumbersome,  heavy  cakes  flying  up  to  the  surface  like 
so  many  released  corks,  supplied  plenty  of  live  interest 
during  the  next  couple  of  hours. 

Then,  just  as  the  sun,  a  red  ball,  had  climbed  above  the 
dense  banks  of  mist  swathing  the  hills,  we  came  round  a 
bend  past  the  village  of  Feersova,  into  full  view  of  our 
old  friend,  the  enemy  —  the  ice  jam  again.  It  stretched 
motionless  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see. 

We  were  in  midstream  and  the  current  was  running 
like  a  millrace.  Around  us,  and  thicker  and  thicker  be- 
hind us,  more  great  chunks  of  ice  were  speeding  down,  the 
forerunner  of  another  jam  that  was  hurrying  in  our  rear. 
There  was  no  pulling  against  the  stream.  For  a  bad 
couple  of  minutes  it  seemed  impossible  that  we  could  get 
over  to  the  shore  before  being  cast  against  the  churning 
spume-flecked  jaws  of  the  jam  ahead,  where  we  could 
readily  see  blocks  of  ice,  the  size  of  a  grand  piano,  being 
sucked  under  in  the  mid-race. 

Fortunately  for  us,  ice  does  not  jam  across  a  river  in 
a  straight  line;  the  blockage  takes  the  form  of  a  V,  the 
apex  seaward.  We  managed  to  make  a  contact  midway 
down  the  V  among  the  drift  ice  that  ground  faster  and 
faster  along  the  narrow  channel. 

There  was  no  time  to  lose.  At  each  bump  of  a  new  ar- 
rival a  small  floe  of  shore  ice  would  come  lose  from  the 
slight  moorings  which  the  night's  frost  had  given  it  with 
its  fellows,  and  go  careering  down  to  swirl  about  in  the 
whirlpool  at  the  apex,  or  be  sucked  under  the  surface  of 
the  main  jam.     We  sprang  out  on  a  creaking  floe,  gathered 


Chinese   cans    oesule   tlic   river   at    Ulasowesicncnsk 


«-^  « 


The  start  of  tlie  ride  to  Oukteeclicnskaia 


DOWJSr  WITH  THE  SHILKA  ICE         161 

up  our  more  valuable  belongings,  tossed  some  blankets 
over  our  shoulders,  and  made  a  bee-line  for  terra  firma 
150  yards  ahead.  Between  the  big  floes  were  patches  of 
broken  mush  that  we  had  no  time  to  test.  Twice  we 
went  up  to  the  hip,  and  once  Jack  had  to  be  dragged  out 
of  a  hole  en  route. 

A  few  minutes  later  we  stood  on  the  water  front  of 
Feersova  and  watched  our  landing  floe  break  away,  carry- 
ing with  it  the  Why  Notf,  down  into  the  vortex  of  the 
ice  jam.  For  a  moment  she  spun  round  and  round  like 
a  cork.  Then,  with  a  big  chunk  of  ice  that  had  come 
down  in  her  rear,  she  was  sucked  under  and  disappeared. 

At  Feersova,  we  agreed  the  situation  would  be  sim- 
plicity itself.  A  tarantass,  a  native  springless  carriage, 
would  be  chartered  and  we  would  continue  our  journey 
down  the  post  road  to  Blagowestchensk.  The  hitch  came 
in  the  discovery  that  there  was  no  tarantass  or  carriage 
in  the  village.  The  wretched  Feersovans  were  utterly 
apathetic.  They  had  no  carriage  or  cart,  they  explained, 
and  there  was  an  end  of  the  matter.  We  and  our  bag- 
gage might  rot  in  our  tracks  for  all  they  cared. 

We  made  a  house  to  house  visitation,  explaining  our 
woes,  brandishing  rouble  notes  and  demanding,  now  with 
the  gentleness  of  the  dove,  now  with  blood-curdling 
threats,  objurgations,  conjurations,  and  imprecations,  some 
sort  of  assistance  in  getting  out  of  the  village. 

Finally  we  found  a  grown,  almost  intelligent  peasant 
who  explained  that  the  nearest  post  station  was  some  twen- 
ty-five versts  down  the  river,  that  only  with  difficulty 
could  it  be  reached  on  horseback,  and  that  the  little  river 
steamers  would  not  be  running  for  a  fortnight  or  three 
weeks.  He  found  us  three  horses  and  a  young  man  with 
energy  to  come  with  us  as  guide. 

So  we  rode  across  country  for  five  or  six  hours,  a  switch- 


162  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

back,  pathless  course,  througli  woods  and  across  streams, 
up  and  down  hare-tracks  on  craggy  ravines,  to  the  little 
village  of  Ookteechenskaia.  Here  in  the  post  station  we 
got  some  sleep  after  the  continuous  labors  of  the  past  thir- 
ty-five hours. 


Chapteh  XI 
THE  SIBEEIAN  VILLAGE  AND  THE  VILLAGERS 

OOKTEECHENSKAIA  was  but  a  tinj  village  — 
a  row  of  log  huts  sprawling  for  a  mile  along  the 
river  front,  a  schoolhouse,  a  blue-domed  church 
with  a  crazy  fence,  and  a  post  station.  Beyond  it  stretched 
the  village  fields,  and  on  the  hilltop  above  lay  the  grave- 
yard with  its  scattering  of  three-armed  crosses  and  its 
little  pent-house  sheltering  an  ikon  of  the  Mother  and 
her  Child.  In  this  out-of-the-way  corner  we  lived  for 
several  days,  subsisting  on  such  rations  as  the  natives 
could  spare.  The  food,  for  a  matter  of  fact,  consisted 
of  an  egg  a  day,  chunks  of  coarse  rye  bread,  a  very  thin 
cabbage  soup,  and  tea. 

It  was  spring  with  you  in  America  and  daisies  whitened 
the  fields.  With  us  it  was  still  winter,  and  the  lands 
were  unplowed  and  the  Shilka  locked  in  an  ice  jam 
from  shore  to  shore. 

Each  day  the  post  rider  with  his  saddle-bags  of  mail 
stopped  and  changed  horses  at  the  postantia,  told  the  gos- 
sip of  the  river  hamlets,  and  then  passed  on.  Of  other 
wayfarers  there  was  none.  We  were  the  first  foreigners 
to  have  honored  the  village  with  a  stay. 

There  were  not  many  amusements  in  Ookteechenskaia, 

and  we  had  to  make  our  own  fim.     Each  afternoon  we 

gathered  the  kiddies  in  our  room  at  the  post  house  and 

gave  them  toys  —  distorting  mirrors,  electric  pocket  lights, 

and  stars  painted  with  phosphorous  that  glowed  in  the 

163 


164j  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

dark  comers  beneath  the  table.  On  the  second  day  they 
brought  their  big  brothers  and  sisters,  their  fathers  and 
their  mothers.  Some  even  brought  their  grandparents. 
Then  our  room  was  filled  with  a  gaping,  oh-ohing  crowd 
of  cow-faced  natives  to  whom  electricity  was  an  unknown 
marvel,  and  who,  when  we  told  them  that  New  York  had 
many  buildings  over  twenty  stories  high  and  that  we 
really  do  not  have  dust  storms  on  Broadway,  spat  on  the 
floor  and  declared  to  one  another  that  we  were  mad. 
But  while  we  were  teaching  the  Ookteechenskaians,  the 
Ookteechenskaians  taught  us  many  things,  not  the  least 
of  which  was  how  to  pronounce  the  name  of  their  town, 
and  how  the  Siberian  village  or  Mir  is  constituted. 

For  the  foi-mer  all  one  needs  is  a  long,  deep  breath  and 
patience.  Of  the  latter,  it  must  be  understood  that  the 
Siberian  village  is  the  type  of  Siberian  life  to-day. 

Siberia,  the  northern  half  of  Asia,  is  at  present  pri- 
marily an  agricultural  country.  It  harbors  no  upper 
classes  outside  the  few  high  officials,  governors,  well-born 
officers  in  garrison,  who  live  in  a  handful  of  large  towns. 
There  are  absolutely  no  residents  in  the  rural  districis 
drawn  from  what  one  is  accustomed  to  call  the  upper  class. 
Again,  there  is  practically  no  middle  class.  You  find  a 
sprinkling  of  them  in  towns  —  commercial  agents,  big 
shopkeepers,  bank  officials,  and  so  forth,  and,  scattered  at 
long  intervals  up  and  down  country,  are  the  doctors  and 
their  assistants  the  vehchers,  the  mining  engineers,  mine 
managers  and  mine  agents,  the  occasional  schoolmaster 
and  the  banished  'politicals  of  education.  There  are  next 
to  no  employers  of  labor,  no  prosperous  farmers,  no  fruit 
growers  or  small  capitalists  interested  in  profitable  rural 
industries. 

Why? 

Socialism  is  the  answer.     All  the  army  of  wranglers 


THE  SIBEEIAN  VILLAGE  165 

about  socialism,  the  pros  and  the  antis,  scattered  around 
the  seven  seas,  are  too  busy  over  their  theoretical  argu- 
ments and  theses,  apparently,  to  be  aware  of  the  fact  that 
the  population  of  one-half  of  the  globe's  five  continents 
is  to-day  practicing  and  has  been  practicing  for  the  past 
fifty  years,  an  actual,  workable  kind  of  socialism. 

When,  away  back  in  the  '60s,  Tsar  Alexander  II  freed 
the  serfs,  he  formed  them  into  village  communes  or  Mirsj 
each  man  being  given  a  hut,  a  yard,  and  a  share  in  the 
agricultural  lands  of  the  village. 

The  present  ratio  of  distribution  allows  about  100  dec- 
itima  (a  decitima  is  equal  to  two-thirds  of  an  acre  of  land, 
to  a  family,  with  five  additional  decitima  for  every  man 
and  male  child.  At  the  end  of  each  fifteen  years  a  new 
division  is  made  to  accommodate  the  families  that  have 
grown  up.  A  certain  amount  is  set  aside  for  common 
pasturage.     A  peasant  may  rent  land  but  not  sell  it. 

The  head  of  the  Mir  is  the  SelsJci  Starosta  or  village 
elder  who  is  the  representative  of  law  and  order,  the  last 
of  that  great  line  of  Russian  officials  which  begins  with 
the  Tsar  himself.  The  village  elder  is  elected  by  the 
members  of  the  Mir.  He  it  is  who  visees  your  passport 
in  the  small  town  and  to  whom  are  brought  village  spats 
and  the  question  of  debts.  According  to  the  Mir  con- 
stitution, the  entire  family  is  held  responsible  for  the 
misdemeanors  and  liabilities  of  one  of  its  members.  Civil 
cases  including  sums  up  to  1,000  roubles  are  tried  by  a 
justice  of  the  peace  (Merovi  Sudie)  who  sits  at  a  county 
seat.     There  is  a  justice  to  each  three  or  four  counties. 

As  robbery  without  murder  is  exceptional  rather  than 
customary  in  rural  communities,  there  is  no  law  for  petty 
offence,  the  natives  settling  it  among  themselves.  The 
usual  procedure  is  that  followed  the  world  over  —  a  fight. 
And  the  Siberian  peasant  fights  in  a  novel  though  some- 


166  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

what  Biblical  manner.  Instead  of  hurling  themselves  into 
a  good,  soul-satisfying  fisticuff  —  the  give  and  take  of 
ordinary  lands  —  the  contestants  stand  and  glare  at  each 
other  like  enraged  beasts  for  a  time,  then  one  steps  for- 
ward and  smacks  his  rival  on  the  cheek  with  the  palm  of 
his  hand,  the  rival  remaining  stock-still  with  his  arms  to 
his  side.  Then  the  other  man  gets  in  his  smack.  That 
is  all.  There  are  no  more  blows.  Mutual  satisfaction 
has  been  gained.     They  part. 

As  an  outcome  of  this  socialistic  system,  the  peasant 
has  no  master  but  the  will  of  his  compeers,  and  he  would 
not  work  for  wages  were  a  capitalist  farmer  to  come  into 
the  neighborhood  and  offer  to  employ  him.  He  would  rob 
that  man  but  he  would  not  work  for  him.  Should  he,  by 
any  chance,  be  ambitious  enough  to  earn  a  little  money 
working  for  wages,  he  must  get  the  consent  of  his  com- 
mune before  he  may  sign  himself.  Thus  the  peasant  has 
to  bow  to  the  will  of  his  compeers  in  all  matters  concern- 
ing the  tilling  and  sowing  of  the  soil,  and  the  reaping  of 
harvests,  and  his  income  is  that  of  his  fellows.  In  the 
majority  of  cases,  if  a  man  wishes  to  follow  enlightened 
farming  methods,  whether  concerning  an  innovation  in 
instruments,  a  new  crop  rotation,  or  a  suggestion  that 
exhausted  lands  be  given  a  rest,  he  is  taken  before  the  al- 
most invariably  obstinate  head  man  of  the  commune,  lec- 
tured on  the  error  of  his  ways,  and  sent  back  home  an 
embittered  and  thenceforth  nonchalant  being.  This  very 
phase  of  Mir  life  was  commented  on  by  a  butter  merchant, 
a  Dane,  whom  we  met  in  Omsk.  Many  of  the  steppe 
farmers,  though  it  is  to  their  advantage  to  do  so,  refuse 
absolutely  to  use  a  separator  for  their  milk,  call  them 
"  devil  machines  "  and  are  content  to  jog  along  as  did 
their  forefathers. 

Instead  of  rising  to  a  higher  level  of  civilization,  the 


THE  SIBEEIAN  VILLAGE  167 

Siberian  method  of  socialism  —  each  man  working  not  for 
himself  but  for  the  weal  of  the  commune  —  gives  abun- 
dant opportunity  for  the  laziness  that  is  apparent  on  all 
sides,  and  in  a  most  emphatic  manner  is  killing  all  enter- 
prise and  is  pulling  the  better  men  down  to  a  shockingly 
low  level  of  slothful  mediocrity. 

This  apathy  is  evidenced  in  the  way  the  Siberian  farmer 
tills  his  soil.  Fundamentally,  he  is  a  poor  husbandman. 
In  many  regions  he  is  still  content  simply  to  scratch  the 
ground  with  his  rude  solsha  or  harrow-plow  rather  than 
use  modern  machinery.  He  will  not  rotate  his  crops  nor 
fertilize  the  ground.  Manure  he  burns  for  fuel.  He 
will  grow  three  successive  crops  of  the  same  kind  on  a 
plot  and  then  let  it  lie  idle  for  from  five  to  ten  years. 
Half  the  land  is  untilled  in  the  neighborhood  of  villages, 
and  when  the  crops  fail  on  the  land  that  is  tilled,  then 
famine  comes. 

The  winter  of  1910-11  saw  suffering  untold  throughout 
Siberia,  famine  much  more  terrible  than  that  of  1907. 
To  be  sure,  the  summer  was  very  hot  and  drought  killed 
the  crops,  but  the  peasant  who  lives  from  day  to  day  had 
little  laid  up  against  it.  In  twenty  eastern  Russian  and 
western  Siberian  provinces  that  have  a  total  population 
of  36,000,000,  19,500,000  people  were  actually  starving 
and  in  need  of  immediate  State  assistance.  The  crops  of 
that  year,  not  only  of  grain,  but  of  fodder  and  hay,  en- 
.  tirely  failed  in  regions  both  sides  of  the  Urals.  Conse- 
quently cattle,  horses,  and  household  goods  were  sold  at 
ruinous  prices  by  the  peasants  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  fall  and  they  were  forced  to  satisfy  the  pangs  of  hunger 
with  acorns,  bran,  weeds,  ground  bark  of  trees  and  in 
some  known  cases,  even  with  clay.  Mixed  with  a  little 
flour  these  substitutes  are  turned  into  a  heavy  black  paste 
called  "  bread."     Sickness  —  hemorrhage  and  colic  —  are 


1G8  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

the  usual  sequels  of  such  food,  but  eventually  scurvy  and 
typhus  follow  in  the  wake  of  famine. 

It  appears  from  reports  of  that  winter's  famine  that 
two  and  one-half  cents  were  sufficient  in  famine  districts 
to  save  one  life  from  starvation  for  one  day,  and  $4  for 
saving  it  till  the  next  crop. 

The  Western  mind  naturally  asks,  "  Why  does  not  the 
farmer  save  a  little  money  ?  "  The  answer  of  the  Rus- 
sian Government,  whose  care  of  the  peasant  is  theoretic- 
ally paternal,  is  that  the  farmer  can  save  if  he  will  permit 
the  Government  to  lend  a  hand. 

At  the  present  time  the  Russian  Government  has  nearly 
$40,000,000  of  government  moneys  invested  in  the  farm- 
er's cooperative  credit  system.  The  peasant  deposits  his 
money  with  these  credit  societies  and  after  his  death  his 
funeral  expenses  will  be  paid  or  the  sums  will  be  returned 
to  him  on  the  coming  of  age  of  his  son  or  the  marriage 
of  his  daughter. 

The  Government  has  two  distinct  aims  in  maintaining 
this  credit  system:  (1)  to  educate  the  peasants  along 
lines  of  modern  farming;  (2)  to  encourage  them  to  save 
their  earnings. 

In  the  first  case,  for  example:  the  Government,  appre- 
ciating the  possibilities  of  the  butter  producing  section  — • 
there  are  about  160,000  square  miles  of  this  —  the  dairy 
products  of  which  constitute  one  of  Siberia's  largest  peas- 
ant outputs,  has  established  dairy  schools  and  is  subsi- 
dizing them  at  a  cool  million  of  dollars  each  year.  They 
are  situated  at  the  chief  centers  of  the  industry,  at  Kainsk, 
Omsk,  Kourgan,  Somernagorsk  and  Barnaoul.  An  agro- 
non,  or  instructor  of  dairy  farming,  is  in  charge,  and  the 
peasant  is  given  a  three  months'  course  in  all  subjects 
pertaining  to  the  care  and  tilling  of  the  soil,  the  modem 
methods  of  making  butter,  and  the  breeding  of  stock.     The 


THE  SIBERIAN  VILLAGE  169 

"Government  offers  gold  medals  for  which  the  farmers  can 
compete.  This  State  interest  has  given  the  butter  busi- 
ness great  impetus.  In  1896  there  was  but  one  dairy  in 
all  Siberia.  To-day  they  number  over  3,000  each  with 
an  output  of  from  fifteen  to  thirty  hundredweight  of  but- 
ter every  week.  These  dairies  are  conducted  usually  by 
artels  which  makes  the  cost  of  hand  labor  low  though  the 
labor  is  concomitantly  low  in  efiiciency.  Wages  in  Si- 
beria are  about  one-tenth  of  those  given  in  America.  In 
the  dairy  districts,  a  workman  gets  about  $1.75  a  week 
for  six  days,  working  twelve  hours  a  day. 

The  credit  system  was  instituted  in  1895  and  now  in- 
cludes some  10,000  farmers'  artels. 

The  Siberian  village  is  ugly  and  squalid  invariably. 
It  has  an  unpleasant  note  of  individuality  that  picks  it  out 
from  the  villages  of  any  other  country  —  the  utter  absence 
of  shade,  of  trees.  As  matters  stand,  the  village,  espe- 
cially on  the  banks  of  the  big  rivers,  would  often  be  quite 
presentable  in  summer  had  it  those  avenues  of  foliage, 
those  big  gnarled  trees  cropping  up  in  odd  corners  that 
give  so  much  of  their  charm  to  the  villages  of  western 
Europe  and  America. 

But  the  Siberian  peasant  will  have  none  of  them.  If 
a  tree  manages  to  drag  its  dusty,  parch-rooted  self  up  to 
adolescence  within  the  confines  of  the  village,  it  is  hacked 
down  by  a  peasant.  Nor  is  there  any  attempt  whatever 
at  outdoor  gardening,  individual  gardening  as  we  know 
and  love  it.  There  is  the  socialistic  commercialized  shar- 
ing of  the  market  gardens  situated  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
village,  and  perhaps  one  log  cabin  in  four  boasts  of  half 
a  dozen  flowering  shrubs  and  plants  kept  in  tubs  and  old 
biscuit  tins  in  the  living-room  during  the  winter.  No 
one  grows  flowers  out-of-doors  or  makes  the  slightest  at- 
tempt to  beautify  the  bare  wooden  walls  of  the  home  with 


170  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

creepers  or  the  yard  with  shrubs.  Ivy  is  never  seen  out- 
side a  building,  and  is  rare  indeed  in  the  forests. 

Siberia  with  its  fifty-two  or  so  feast  holidays  in  the 
year  is  in  an  uniquely  favored  position  among  the  lands 
of  the  world  to  gain  a  reputation  for  gardening.  Instead 
of  sheer  lazing  about  and  vodka  drunkenness  to  pass  the 
time  on  feast  days,  the  men  might  well  use  their  spare 
days  making  their  villages  a  pattern  to  civilization;  but 
they  seem  to  have  little  or  no  sense  of  esthetics.  The 
state  of  their  homes,  the  slipshod  dressing  of  their  women 
and  children  tell  the  same  tale.  Small  wonder  that  the 
Japanese  look  upon  them  with  such  deep  contempt,  and 
consider  the  Russian  peasantry  in  general  as  barbarians. 

Until  1904  fines  or  short  terms  of  imprisonment  were 
imposed  on  those  who  persisted  in  working  on  holidays. 
These  were  abolished  because  the  idleness  they  occasioned 
was  a  great  drawback  to  the  agricultural  interests  of  the 
people,  whole  crops  sometimes  being  spoiled  by  the  refusal 
of  the  devout  to  work  on  a  church  holiday.  From  what 
we  saw  of  holidays  in  the  villages  we  were  led  to  believe 
that  the  natives  do  not  take  advantage  of  the  liberty  al- 
lowed them.  For,  despite  the  new  law,  the  holidays  are 
still  kept,  and  the  trader  business  thrives. 

The  Russian  Government  makes  some  effort  to  care  for 
the  intellectual  and  physical  welfare  of  the  next  genera- 
tion of  peasants.  Each  village,  even  the  smallest,  has  a 
narodnija  utcMlistclia,  an  elementary  school  where  the 
three  R's  are  taught.  To  each  log  schoolhouse  is  attached 
a  playground,  grassless,  treeless  and  dusty,  fitted  with 
swings,  giant  ■  strides,  parallel  bars  and  wooden  horses. 
And  that  spot  is  by  far  the  cheeriest  spot  in  the  village, 
for  the  children  study  and  play  with  boisterousness  un- 
restrained. 

While  only  one  town  in  a  dozen  boasts  a  doctor,  each 


THE  SIBEKIAN  VILLAGE  171 

has  its  vehcher,  a  male  nurse  trained  in  simple  materia 
medica.  The  doctor  makes  a  continuous  circuit  of  bis 
villages,  leaving  the  simpler  cases  to  his  assistant  who  is 
in  residence.  At  points  along  the  railroads  and  postal 
routes  are  small  hospitals,  a  room  with  one  cot  —  those 
we  examined  had  the  dirtiest  bed  linen  —  a  row  of  bottles 
and  drug  packets,  innumerable  ikons,  a  picture  of  the  Tsar 
taken  when  he  was  about  nineteen,  and  a  row  of  charity 
boxes. 

Ordinarily  the  peasant  is  a  very  rugged  and  robust 
specimen,  but  when  he  falls  ill  his  attitude  is  quite  in  line 
with  his  general  apathy.  If  he  feels  the  least  touch  of 
sickness  he  goes  to  bed  and  refuses  to  stir  until  his  family 
routes  him  out  or  he  dies.  The  neglect  of  disease  among 
the  natives  of  Siberia  is  appalling.  A  government  statute 
prohibits  the  sale  of  patent  medicines  without  a  physician's 
order,  so  the  native,  too  poor  or  too  lazy  to  summon  a 
doctor,  succumbs  to  his  disease. 

It  would  be  well,  one  thinks,  if  the  Eussian  Government 
would  devote  some  of  the  energy  it  now  expends  on  jailing 
talkative  university  students  to  a  serious  study  of  the 
diseases  that  are  scourging  its  people.  Typhoid  fever  is 
prevalent  in  all  Siberian  towns.  Water  is  taken,  in  the 
river  villages,  directly  from  the  river.  Possibly  the  fact 
that  all  Russians  drink  tea,  which  necessitates  the  boiling 
of  the  water,  is  what  has  preserved  whole  communities. 
Cholera  is  a  regular  summer  visitant,  though  in  the  cities 
the  authorities  post  up  warnings  to  householders  to  drink 
no  unboiled  water  nor  eat  uncooked  fruit.  In  some  places, 
as  at  Omsk,  the  melon  market  is  closed  during  cholera 
scares.  But  even  worse  diseases  are  sapping  the  strength 
of  the  people.  To  pick  out  one  example  from  many,  one 
that  is  staggering:  the  leading  physician  at  Omsk  stated 
that  eighty  per  cent,  of  the  people  in  that  city  are  syph- 


172  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

ilitic,  and  that,  in  consequence,  the  insane  asylums  are 
overcrowded  with  unfortunates.  Physicians  in  Irkutsk 
gave  a  rate  for  that  city  of  not  much  lower  percentage. 
In  the  gymnasium  for  girls  at  Blagowestchensk  there  were 
YOO  pupils  enrolled  in  1911.  Of  those  over  fifteen  years 
of  age,  thirty-five  per  cent,  were  suffering  from  the  same 
disease.  In  many  Tartar  and  Cossack  villages,  the  preva- 
lence is  one  hundred  per  cent. 

Each  village  maintains  a  zemstJcaia  Tcvatvra,  often  a 
single  room  where  travelers  may  put  in  for  the  night  and 
get  a  samovar  and  black  bread.  The  cuisine  at  these 
houses  will  never  gain  a  world-wide  reputation  for  va- 
riety or  pleasurable  palatability.  The  furniture  of  the 
room  is  crude,  usually  one  table,  a  bench  or  two,  and  some 
chairs.  The  decorations  are  hideous  chromes  and  still 
more  hideous  family  photographs,  and  we  found  with 
singular  regularity  the  table  ornamented  with  a  stack 
of  empty  beer  bottles.  The  traveler  furnishes  his  own 
bedding  and  sleeps  on  the  floor. 

Beside  the  zemstJcaia  Tcvatvra  there  is  maintained  by  the 
Government  along  rural  post  roads  postantia,  post  houses, 
where  a  guest  room  is  reserved.  The  keeper  issues  tickets 
for  a  nominal  sum  that  cover  the  price  of  horses  or  taran- 
tass  and  a  guide  to  the  next  post  house.  The  postantia 
affords  a  floor  to  sleep  on  and  hot  water.  You  provide  the 
blankets  and  the  tea.  The  guest  room  is  kept  compara- 
tively clean  and  the  floor  of  broad  pine  boards  proves  a 
refreshing  bed  after  ten  hours  in  the  saddle. 

While  traveling  through  Siberia  one  often  meets  wan- 
dering bands  of  carpenters  —  artels  they  are  called  — 
sometimes  a  dozen  men  with  their  saws  and  axes  on  their 
backs.  They  are  an  outgrowth  of  the  socialistic  atmos- 
phere, and,  to  hark  back  to  the  original  theme,  the  best 
development  it  has  taken.     They  have  no  master.     While 


THE  SIBEEIA:^r  VILLAGE  173 

the  artel  will  not  guarantee  the  efficiency  of  its  individual 
member,  it  holds  itself  responsible  for  his  honesty.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  remuneration  is  shared  equally. 
Should  you  want  a  house  built,  you  call  in  an  artel,  and, 
without  having  to  bicker  and  contract  with  a  small  army 
of  plumbers,  masons,  roofers  and  nondescript  hodcarriers, 
as  in  countries  more  advanced  in  civilization,  the  artel 
takes  the  entire  matter  out  of  your  hands.  When  you  pay, 
you  pay  the  artel. 

The  artel  system,  however,  is  not  confined  to  carpen- 
ters. The  artelschik  can  be  found  in  offices,  on  the  streets, 
in  the  factories,  shops  and  railroad  stations,  and  on  the 
farms.  Even  the  convict  settlements  have  their  artels 
who  look  after  the  interests  of  the  penal  community  and 
arrange  for  the  purchase  of  its  necessities. 

The  low  efficiency  of  the  Siberian  laborer  is  not  the 
fault  of  the  Eussian  Government.  He  is  inherently  lazy. 
Were  the  Government  less  kind  to  her  children,  they 
might,  in  time,  develop  stamina  enough  to  make  a  self- 
supporting  people.  As  compared  to  the  immigrant  set- 
tlers in  our  own  West  or  in  Canada,  the  Siberian  peasant 
is  a  pitiful  specimen  of  humanity  —  nearer  beast  than 
man. 

Like  mankind  the  world  over,  he  is  essentially  gregari- 
ous. He  will  not  live  out  in  the  country  but  must  cluster 
in  the  to^vn.  He  may  have  to  ride  miles  to  and  from 
his  fields  each  day,  but  nothing  will  induce  him  to  erect 
his  hut  out  there  on  the  plains  and  to  fight  for  existence, 
as  have  thousands  of  settlers  in  other  lands,  against  the 
elements  and  the  loneliness  of  steppe  life.  Often  the 
peasant  is  too  lazy  to  ride  out  to  his  farm  for  days  at 
a  stretch.  The  fields,  of  course,  suffer  from  want  of  his 
attention  and  he,  in  winter,  from  want  of  their  productiv- 
ity. 


174  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

The  peasant  respects  two  persons,  the  Tsar  and  God. 

The  former  he  is  obliged  to  respect,  or  else  he  will  be 
jailed  as  a  political.  He  must  likewise  give  him  three 
years  of  his  youth  to  serve  in  the  army.  Eut  the  ordinary 
private  —  and  we  encountered  him  under  many  condi- 
tions, favorable  and  otherwise  —  does  not  command  much 
respect.  Like  the  soldiers  of  many  lands,  he  pilfers;  he 
is  slovenly  in  the  care  of  his  uniform;  and  he  snatches 
at  the  least  graft  that  comes  his  way.  In  the  last  instance 
he  is  hardly  to  be  blamed.  His  officers  do  it,  and  be- 
sides, the  private's  pay  is  so  ridiculously  small  that  he 
must  get  money  somewhere.  Think  of  it!  The  soldier 
of  the  Little  Father  is  given  seventy-five  hopecks  a  month, 
thirty-six  cents  in  our  money !  Out  of  this  he  must  find 
shoe  blacking  and  repairs  to  his  uniform.  And  the  sev- 
enty-five Tcopecks  are  given  him  in  weekly  instalments  of 
about  nine  cents  in  our  money,  to  prevent  drunkenness ! 

The  return  of  the  soldier  from  his  term  of  service  is 
the  link  the  Siberian  village  off  the  railroad  has  with  civ- 
ilization and  the  outside  world.  Following  a  policy  cal- 
culated to  deter  local  uprisings,  the  army  authorities  have 
adopted  the  old  Eoman  military  scheme  of  moving  a  man 
thousands  of  miles  away  from  his  home  town.  Thus 
Polish  soldiers  are  scattered  throughout  Siberia  and  vice 
versa. 

One  such  came  home  while  we  were  at  Ookteechenskaia. 
He  was  a  strapping  youth  with  an  incipient  moustache 
and  an  English  vocabulary  that  was  limited  to  "  all  right " 
and  "  damn."  There  was  a  general  scurry  among  the 
women  of  the  town  and  the  show  of  Sunday  frocks  proved 
that  even  in  Ookteechenskaia,  the  female  heart  loves  brass 
buttons.  That  night  the  entire  village  gathered  in  to 
hear  the  experiences  of  the  soldier.  The  older  men  who 
had  served  their  time  compared  notes  and  sighed  over 


THE  SIBERIAN  VILLAGE  175 

the  fact  that  the  good  old  days  of  the  army  were  passed. 
There  was  much  vodka  and  the  showing  of  many  photo- 
graphs, for  the  Russian  soldier  has  a  fatal  weakness  for 
being  photographed  in  his  uniform;  then  the  youth's 
sword  was  hung  up  on  the  wall  of  the  room  near  the  ikon 
comer,  the  little  sanctuary  that  is  found  in  each  house 
however  humble.  There  it  will  hang  until  the  Little 
Father  calls  on  him  for  help. 

All  men  who  have  served  their  time  in  the  army  are 
enrolled  in  the  reservists.  They  can  be  summoned  back 
to  the  ranks  at  twenty-four  hours'  notice.  In  time  of  war 
or  of  war  scares,  the  reservist  is  not  allowed  to  leave  his 
village.  During  the  altercation  with  China  over  the  Mon- 
golian border  in  the  spring  of  1911,  we  found  the  re- 
servists sitting  in  their  huts  awaiting  the  order  to  join 
a  regiment.  Incidentally,  many  of  them  took  this  en- 
forced holiday  with  no  good  will.  As  one  peasant  ex- 
pressed it,  "  I've  been  to  one  war.  I  fought  the  Japanese, 
and  I'll  not  go  to  another."  Yet  this  man  wore  the  Cross 
of  St.  George  for  valor  in  the  trenches  along  the  Yalu ! 

The  relation  of  the  priest  in  the  small  town  to  the  people 
is  much  akin  to  that  which  prevails  the  world  over.  The 
pope,  as  he  is  known  to  the  Russians,  mingles  with  his 
flock,  accepting  their  hospitality  with  quaint  condescen- 
sion, and  taking  his  perquisites,  it  must  be  lamented,  with 
an  almost  greedy  hand.  We  saw  much  of  these  priests 
both  in  the  towns  and  the  villages.  Their  long  blue  cas- 
socks, their  unshorn  hair  falling  down  to  the  shoulder, 
and  their  beards  give  them  an  eminently  paternal  appear- 
ance. At  a  distance  they  reminded  one  of  the  pictures 
of  the  Man  of  Galilee;  yet,  on  approach,  we  found  them 
very  greasy  and  very  ignorant.  They  know  little  more 
than  their  liturgy  and  the  simple  articles  of  faith.  This, 
perhaps,  is  well,  for  their  flocks  are  simple  folk  trusting 


176  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

the  church  without  the  exercise  of  their  intellects,  a  nec- 
essary confidence  because  the  average  peasant  has  little 
intellect  to  exercise.  The  priest  has  many  perquisites 
in  the  Greek  church.  He  must  be  present  at  births  and 
deaths  and  must  receive  payment  for  his  services.  In 
some  towns,  it  is  rumored,  the  priest  grows  fat  on  his 
perquisites,  but  that  is  not  the  average  state  of  affairs. 

We  saw  the  village  priest  in  a  picturesque  light  at 
Feersova.  It  was  the  morning  we  landed  on  the  bank 
before  the  little  Shilka  town  and  watched  our  tiny  craft, 
the  Why  Not?,  crushed  in  the  ice  jams.  As  related  be- 
fore, we  expected  to  take  a  tarantass  from  the  village  and 
continue  our  journey  down  the  Amur  post  road  but 
were  unable  to  find  one  in  the  town.  The  fact  of  the 
matter  was,  our  landing  at  Feersova  attracted  little  at- 
tention. We  wondered  at  this  because  the  manner  of  our 
arrival  was  somewhat  out  of  the  ordinary  and,  moreover, 
strangers  and  above  all  foreigners,  which  we  obviously 
were,  are  not  often  seen  in  the  town.  However,  the 
mystery  was  soon  explained.  We  made  house  to  house 
visitations  and  finally  came  to  a  large  log  cabin  where, 
it  seemed,  most  of  the  village  had  foregathered.  In  one 
of  the  rooms  were  crowded  the  men.  They  welcomed  U3 
effusively,  offering  vodka  and  confections.  Among  them 
was  a  young  cleric  in  his  blue  cassock.  A  cross  hung  on 
his  breast,  and  in  his  hand  was  a  glass  of  scnapps.  First 
the  refreshments  were  offered  to  him,  then  to  us  and  the 
rest  of  the  men.  It  was  very  pleasant  indeed,  but  vodka 
and  sweet  cakes  were  not  what  we  wanted  most  at 
that  moment.  We  wanted  a  tarantass,  horses  —  anything 
to  convey  us  down  the  Amur  pike  to  Blagowestchensk. 
We  rose  to  go.  The  natives  would  not  listen  to  it.  We 
must  stay  for  the  fun.  After  several  more  rounds  of 
vodka  and  cakes,  the  pope  carefully  brushed  the  crumbs 


THE  SIBERIAN  VILLAGE  177 

off  the  front  of  bis  cassock  and  stood  up.  Everyone  else 
stood  up.  He  went  into  an  adjoining  room.  We  fol- 
lowed. And  there  we  found  the  cause  of  the  feast.  Sur- 
rounded by  candles  and  praying  women,  lay  the  body  of 
a  peasant.  In  the  old  man's  hand  was  a  cross  and  a  slip 
of  paper.  The  latter,  the  natives  explained,  was  his  pass- 
port to  St.  iSTicholas,  for  one  must  have  a  passport  in  death 
as  well  as  in  life  according  to  the  Russian.  A  service  in 
the  little  church  followed,  then  the  body  was  borne  up 
to  the  hilltop  and  laid  away.  A  group  of  men  formed  a 
rude  choir  and  intoned  the  responses  to  the  priest,  the 
women,  meantime,  standing  respectfully  behind  them. 
During  the  entire  service  the  body  was  uncovered.  It 
was  uncovered  on  the  way  to  the  grave.  It  was  uncov- 
ered when  the  earth  was  crumbled  over  it.  The  burial 
finished,  the  natives  trooped  back  to  the  village  for  more 
vodka.  Now,  from  the  start  to  the  finish  of  this  solemn 
service,  we  did  not  see  a  single  tear  shed. 

What  we  saw  at  Eeersova  was  only  a  small  reproduc- 
tion of  what  we  had  seen  many  times  at  Irkutsk.  The 
Russians  like  large  funerals.  The  body  is  hauled  on  a 
hearse  that  would  do  honor  to  a  king,  the  horses  led  by 
men  in  white  and  the  pallbearers  marching  beside  the  body 
with  unlit  candles  in  their  hands. 

Once  in  Irkutsk  we  were  walking  down  the  Bolshskaia 
quite  unconcerned  when  we  noticed  that  the  pedestrians 
ahead  of  us  were  stepping  out  into  the  street,  the  men 
removing  their  hats,  and  making  way  for  a  little  group 
to  pass.  In  front  of  the  group  walked  two  little  girls 
with  wreaths  of  paper  flowers.  They  both  seemed  very 
happy.  Following  them  came  two  women  in  gaudy 
dresses,  and  then  a  man  bearing  under  his  arm  a  tiny 
coffin.  Like  the  rest  of  Russian  coffins,  it  had  no  lid,  and 
the  infant's  body  that  lay  within  was  exposed  to  the  gaze 


178  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

of  the  passerby.  The  procession  was  finished  by  the 
mother  and  the  father,  neither  of  them  sorry  looking  — 
both,  in  fact,  laughing  and  chattering. 

Somehow  our  experiences  with  the  Russian  funeral  and 
the  Russian  priest  proved  a  rebuke  to  our  ultra-modern 
ideas.  The  peasant  trusts  his  spiritual  father  and  smiles 
at  death.     Possibly  he  is  right. 

From  the  foregoing,  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  all  the 
Siberian  peasants  are  members  of  the  Greek  Church.  Re- 
ligious freedom  had  always  been  permitted  in  Siberia, 
and  consequently  a  significant  percentage  of  the  popula- 
tion is  made  up  of  dissenters  —  Raslcolinks,  they  are 
called.  They  include  the  Staravers,  or  old  believers  in 
the  original  dogma  of  the  Greek  Church  before  the  re- 
forms of  the  Seventeenth  Century;  the  Mullakons  whose 
lives  are  marked  for  their  simplicity  and  are  like  our 
Quakers;  the  Doiikhohors,  and  the  Baptists.  These  peo- 
ple came  out  in  the  early  days  of  Siberia's  colonization 
and  have  thrived  in  the  new  land.  We  found  that  these 
sectants  are  not  looked  upon  with  favor  by  the  orthodox 
Greek  churchman.  On  the  Shilka-Blagowestchensk  boat 
there  was  an  altercation  one  day  between  the  mate  and 
the  engineer.  The  latter,  having  delivered  himself  of 
many  purple  oaths,  finally  topped  off  his  expression  of 
wrath  by  the  worst  name  he  could  think  of.  He  curled 
his  fist  under  the  mate's  nose  and  hissed  "  Mullakon!  " 

But  the  Mullakons,  as  we  discovered  in  Amurland,  are 
not  to  be  discounted.  The  purity  and  earnestness  of 
their  lives  stand  out  in  rebuking  contrast  to  the  lives 
of  the  orthodox  peasantry.  The  latter  is  devout.  At 
all  events,  he  observes  each  religious  holiday  —  goes  to 
church  and  gets  drunk.  This  blind  devotion  is  nothing 
exceptional.     One  finds  it  in  many  countries  of  the  globe. 


The   woodetl   banks   of  the   Amur 


1 


Along  the  Amur  above   Bhigowestchensk 


THE  SIBEEIAK  yiLLAGE  179 

But  the  drunkenness  holds  a  story  that  is  far  from  pleas- 
ant. 

Travelers  in  the  kingdom  of  the  Little  Father  often 
wonder  at  the  prevalence  of  armless,  legless  beggars  to 
be  seen  on  all  sides  from  Vilna  to  Vladivostok.  Where 
disease  is  not  responsible,  drink  is.  The  peasant  goes  to 
the  trader  or  wine  shop,  tosses  off  a  bottle  of  vodka, 
and  then,  after  a  time,  turns  homeward.  The  night  is 
cold.  The  way  is  dark.  He  is  very  sleepy,  so  he  drops 
by  the  road.  In  the  morning,  when  he  is  found,  if  he 
is  not  frozen  to  death,  part  of  him  is.  Nor  will  the  peas- 
ant thank  you  if  at  that  time  you  extend  to  him  the 
Samaritan  hand.  In  Tomsk  we  found  a  man  half  frozen 
in  a  pool  not  far  from  the  door  of  a  trader.  We  knew 
that  arrests  for  drunkenness  were  rare  in  Siberia  and 
that  as  this  was  a  side  street  there  might  be  no  passerby 
except  ourselves  for  some  time.  So  we  lifted  him  out 
and  tried  to  succor  him.  When  he  awoke  and  was  warm 
and  sober,  he  cursed  us  for  disturbing  his  rest ! 

The  Siberian  peasant  —  and  we  have  stayed  or  lived 
in  fourteen  of  his  villages  and  had  dealings  with  another 
score  —  is  not  hospitable.  He,  or  rather  his  wife,  will  not 
dream  of  cooking  any  food  especially  for  a  well-paying 
guest.  It  needs  a  distinct  effort  to  obtain  boiled  eggs;  a 
plate  of  soup  is  more  the  exception  than  the  rule.  Butter 
and  milk  are  frequently  refused  in  a  prosperous  agricul- 
tural village,  and  there  is  no  joint  of  meat.  Though  earn- 
ing a  fair  sum  each  week,  a  family  will  eke  out  existence  on 
bread  and  tea  with  an  occasional  treat  of  pirouslcies  or 
hashed  meat  balls.  At  a  government  post  house  you  pay 
double  the  scheduled  price  for  victuals  and  the  man  and 
his  wife  will  grumble.  In  one  instance  —  there  is  no  space 
to  detail  more  —  a  woman  met  us  at  the  door  with  a  saucer 


180  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

we  had  used.     It  had  an  age-old  crack.     And  she  de- 
manded money  on  the  grounds  that  we  had  caused  it ! 

The  dominant  note  of  the  Siberian  peasant  is  that  of 
utter  weariness.  He  seems  to  have  something  heavy  and 
uncomfortable  weighing  him  dovni,  or  better,  something 
inside  sapping  his  vitality,  something  which  he  himself 
cannot  comprehend  and  which  the  casual  observer  might 
erroneously  define  as  sheer  laziness.  Gorki  speaks  of  it 
as  "  a  spark  wanting  in  his  soul."  Whether  that  spark 
is  the  desire  to  grow  and  better  himself  —  a  desire  that 
will  come  only  with  decades  of  education  —  or  the  sense 
of  freedom  and  the  right  to  grow  and  better  himself  — 
which  is  the  product  only  of  a  voice  in  one's  own  governing, 
the  making  and  keeping  of  one's  own  laws  —  is  hard  to  say. 
The  peasant  is  the  product  of  a  system  centuries  old  and 
he  cannot  be  changed  in  a  twinkling,  for  intelligence 
with  him  will  not,  of  necessity,  be  a  concomitant  with 
education  nor  justice  with  liberty.  At  present  he  appears 
quite  content.  Abandoned  completely  to  the  animal 
forces  of  his  instincts,  he  wants  nothing  more  than  a  little 
food,  a  little  clothing,  vodka  enough  to  make  his  head 
light,  and  the  satisfaction  of  his  lust.  Ambition  does  not 
rouse  him.  Initiative  is  denied  him.  He  is  a  member 
of  the  commune.  He  is  just  like  the  rest  of  the  men  in 
his  Mir.  He  shrugs  his  shoulders  —  Neitchevo  !  —  what 
does  it  matter? 


Chaptek  XII 
VOYAGING  THROUGH  AMUELAND  ^ 

WHEiN"  you  swing  round  the  bend  in  the  Shilka 
and  catch  the  drift  of  the  Argun,  the  junction 
of  which  forms  the  mighty  river  Amur,  you  be- 
gin to  appreciate  the  symbolism  of  the  position  of  Alex- 
ander Ill's  statue  at  Irkutsk  —  he  who  looks  hither  with 
such  intense  gaze. 

To  this  region  the  Government  is  directing  the  tide  of 
immigration.  The  climate  is  less  rigorous  than  that  of 
central  and  southern  Siberia  and  the  sheltered  valleys 
among  the  steep  hills  form  excellent  agricultural  land. 
Moreover,  Amurland  and  the  maritime  provinces  touch 
Manchuria. 

West  of  Baikal  the  steppe  land  and  taiga  are  dreary; 
east  is  a  country  whose  scenery  is  more  diversified,  whose 
people  are  imbued  with  modern  ideas,  and,  in  a  measure, 
have  a  freer  hand  to  live  and  do  as  they  please.  Amur- 
land  and  the  maritime  regions  showed  marked  traces  of 
American  influence  and  of  that  inimitable  Far  East  cos- 
mopolitanism. The  people  have  a  cheery  slap-dash  about 
them.     In  the  cities,  they  seem  to  live,  not  barely  exist; 

1  The  voyage  through  Amurland  and  northern  Manchuria  was 
made  by  Mr.  Wright.  On  the  loss  of  the  Why  Not?,  the  authors 
were  obliged,  after  a  short  stay  at  Ookteechenskaia,  to  return  by 
horse  over  the  Shilka  Mountains  to  Stretensk.  Mr.  Digby,  having 
a  passport,  went  south  by  rail,  while  Mr.  Wright,  who  had  no  pass- 
port, had  virtually  to  "  escape "  from  Russian  territory  via  Man- 
churia. 

181 


182  THKOUGH  SIBERIA 

and  they  hurry  now  and  then.  Little  wonder  that  Si- 
beria east  of  Baikal  is  called  "  Eussian  America." 

Here  east  of  Baikal  is  a  region  three  times  the  size  of 
Texas.  In  Trans-Baikalia  are  229,520  square  miles. 
Though  much  of  this  is  mountain  land,  statistics  give 
85,000  square  miles  as  arable.  The  Amur  district  is  172,- 
826,  with  40,000  square  miles  of  it  cultivable;  and  the 
maritime  regions  712,585,  with  63,000  square  miles 
capable  of  supporting  agriculture. 

To  the  north  of  this  region  stretches  the  Government  of 
Yakutsk,  over  a  million  and  a  half  square  miles  in  extent, 
most  of  it  desolate  country  covered  with  timber,  inhab- 
ited here  and  there  by  colonies  of  gold  miners,  no- 
madic tribes,  and  settlements  of  exiles.  Yakutsk  is  a 
word  that  sends  shivers  through  even  a  Siberian.  The 
temperature  falls  often  to  forty  degrees  below  in  winter, 
and  such  summer  as  it  has,  is  very  short.  Yakutsk  to-day 
is  what  the  Island  of  Saghalien  was  before  the  Eusso- 
Japanese  war,  the  place  for  the  banishment  of  the  worst 
criminals  and  of  the  most  perverse  political  offenders. 

The  Shilka  gets  very  shallow  after  the  departure  of  the 
ice.  A  big,  swiftly  flowing  river,  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
wide,  it  frequently  provides  plenty  of  live  interest  to 
navigators  of  steamboats.  From  the  moment  we  cleared 
the  quay  at  Stretensk  a  sailor  with  a  striped  pole  stood  at 
our  bow,  continually  sounding  and  singing  out  the  read- 
ings. 

Our  little  steamer,  a  post  boat  of  the  Government, 
prided  itself  on  drawing  only  three  and  one-half  feet  of 
water,  but  as  we  had  165  third  class  human  beings  — 
"  third  class  "  was  scarcely  a  misnomer  —  stowed  away 
in  our  hold,  she  drew  four  feet. 

The  first  day  all  went  well  until  suppertlme.  We  sat 
down  with  the  cheery  call  of  "  Mark  8 !     Mark  8^  I  " 


A  glimpse  of  the  Amur  waterfront  at  Blagowestchensk 


■"S?«i..'/- 


i 


u '» r  ft^i:jt:i«>«yllli j^^^^^    ■  ■ 


I 


lJij.»  iiiiH  if       


The  square  at   Blagowestchensk.   the   most    American   town 

ill    Siberia 


VOYAGING  THEOUGH  AMUELAND      183 

ringing  in  our  ears.  The  Russian  officers  bound  for  far- 
away garrison  posts,  the  German  lads,  the  Blagowest- 
chenskian  advocate  and  his  chic  little  wife,  a  Moscow 
merchant  or  two,  a  pair  of  sophomores  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  St.  Petersburg,  all  \vere  drinking  their  tea  in 
that  happy  Russian  manner  that  reminds  one  of  the 
sound  of  escaping  steam  in  a  factory. 

The  boat  gave  a  lurch.  The  man  in  the  bow  screamed 
out  "  Tree!  "  (three).  Then  we  struck,  swung  round  in 
the  current  and  lieeled  over. 

Supper  was  abandoned.  The  cabinful  of  us  rushed 
on  deck  while  the  crew  tore  up  and  down  with  much  de- 
rangement of  dignity  and  fluency  of  diction,  and  not  the 
faintest  idea  of  what  they  were  doing.  Presently  a 
great  timber  lever  was  brought  into  play  and  they  fetched 
the  engine  room  staff  up  to  assist.  A  prodigious  strain  — 
and  the  spar  snapped.  There  were  two  more  spars  just 
as  good.  But  instead  of  taking  them,  the  economical 
crew  launched  a  boat,  recaptured  the  broken  end  of  the 
first,  brought  out  saws  and  hammers  and  nails  and  wire, 
and  sat  down  to  mend  it  on  the  spot.  Meanwhile  the  fast- 
flowing  Shilka  was  piling  drift  sand  about  our  hull.  Re- 
versing the  paddle-wheels  only  churned  up  the  sand. 

We  returned  to  finish  supper.  Presently  the  engineer 
came  into  the  saloon  and  announced  that  we  were  stuck 
firm  and  fast,  and  that  he  hadn't  the  ghost  of  an  idea 
when  we  should  manage  to  get  off.  Sixteen  pairs  of 
Russian  shoulders  shrugged;  through  sixteen  mouths  full 
of  fish  and  bread  and  potatoes  came  the  muffled  murmur 
of  "  Neitchevo ! "  One  good  woman  choked  over  her 
tea,  but  as  she  had  done  so  twice  at  luncheon,  it  was 
more  a  case  of  iposi  hoc  than  propter  hoc. 

At  dawn  we  were  towed  off  by  a  light  draft  barge,  and 
on  we  went  for  several  versts,  always  at  a  cautious  twelve 


184;  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

knots  an  hour.  Then  at  a  huge  stack  of  birch  logs  on  the 
bank,  we  cast  anchor  and  "  coaled."  The  entire  crew, 
armed  with  pairs  of  long  poles,  went  ashore,  and,  using 
their  poles  stretcher-fashion,  soon  brought  aboard  a  num- 
ber of  big  piles  of  fuel.  This  operation  had  to  be  re- 
peated at  least  twice  every  day.  We  were  running  heavy 
enough  as  it  was,  and  could  not  risk  losing  six  inches  of 
draught  by  burdening  ourselves  with  extra  firewood. 
The  second  fueling  usually  took  place  at  night  by  the  light 
of  bonfires.  For  three  of  the  five  nights  from  Stretensk 
to  Blagowestchensk  the  bonfires  were  paled  by  the  glow 
of  the  burning  forest;  whole  sides  of  a  mountain  would 
be  aflame  and  it  was  uncomfortably  warm  on  the  decks. 

Forest  fires  are  becoming  a  serious  nuisance  in  Siberia. 
Often  the  taiga  are  cleared  by  merely  firing  them.  In  the 
better  timbered  region  forest  fires  afford  ample  oppor- 
tunity for  graft.  The  forestry  department  gives  a  war- 
den a  large  section  to  supervise.  He  must  count  the  trees, 
classify  them,  cut  avenues  through  to  prevent  the 
spread  oi  fires,  and  lay  corduroy  roads.  This  entails  the 
employment  of  many  men.  The  usual  plan,  if  the  war- 
den wishes  to  graft  on  his  work,  is  to  do  only  half  of  it, 
fire  the  rest,  and  send  in  falsified  requisition  slips  for  the 
wages  of  his  men.  We  had  opportunity  for  appreciating 
the  fact  of  this  graft  when  we  went  down  the  Shilka.  We 
found  respectable  old  men  dismounting  from  their  horses 
and  firing  the  undergrowth  for  what  to  us  at  the  time 
seemed  the  sheer  fun  of  the  thing. 

"  We  know  two  kinds  of  fire,"  Mr.  Sirota,  the  Blago- 
westchensk advocate  said.  "  If  a  belt  of  forest  is  swept 
by  a  swift  fire  that  leaps  along  the  tops  of  the  trees  and 
merely  consumes  the  foliage  and  chars  the  limbs,  the 
matter  will  right  itself  before  long.  The  wind  that  drove 
the  fire  will  extinguish  it  before  the  trunks  of  the  trees 


VOYAGING  THEOUGH  AMUELAND       185 

and  the  peat  below  can  get  thoroughly  ablaze.  The  seri- 
ous Siberian  forest  fire  is  that  which  catches  the  slow 
burning  bed  of  turf  or  pine  needles  below.  Once  the  bed 
of  a  forest  is  well  alight,  the  ignition  will  creep  onward 
and  onward  for  weeks,  yielding  to  no  rain  and  consuming 
every  stick  of  timber  and  deep  burrowing  root  it  finds  on 
the  way. 

"  A  year  or  two  ago  we  had  a  bad  forest  fire  on  the 
banks  of  the  Angarar  near  Baikal  Lake.  The  smoke  rose, 
and,  drifting,  hung  like  a  mighty  pall  over  hundreds  of 
square  miles  of  central  Siberia.  For  over  a  month  the 
sun  was  nothing  more  than  a  red  ball  glowing  dully 
through  the  yellow  haze." 

Throughout  the  day  my  companions  kept  themselves 
busily  employed.  After  the  dishes  were  cleared  from  the 
cabin  table,  we  sat  around  and  carried  on  a  genuine  Pen- 
tacostal  conversation.  The  professor  and  the  Petersburg 
University  students  were  reading  proofs  of  a  book  on 
elementary  geology,  two  German  lads  on  their  way  to  the 
Kundst  and  Albers  store  at  Blagowestchensk  were  mightily 
homesick  and  talked  all  day  of  the  Fatherland,  the 
Moscow  merchant  perused  month-old  papers  and  "  talked 
shop  "  to  whomsoever  of  us  he  could  buttonhole,  the  ad- 
vocate and  I  spelled  out  Justinian  from  a  tome  he  had 
picked  up  in  Naples,  while  his  charming  little  wife  was 
reading  the  bizarre  combination  of  French  translations  of 
Oscar  Wilde's  "  De  Profundis  "  and  Sherlock  Holmes. 

There  was  an  unusual  sport  that  broke  the  monotony 
of  the  day,  a  sport  that  would  have  astonished  those  ac- 
customed to  traveling  in  well-populated  river  valleys. 
Duck  used  to  swim  ahead  of  the  boat,  apparently  uncon- 
scious of  our  presence.  Then  those  of  us  who  had  guns 
would  line  up  on  the  forward  deck,  the  captain  would 
toot  his  whistle,  and  the  gunners  would  blaze  away  at  the 


186  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

birds  as  they  rose  from  the  water.     I  do  not  recall  having 

seen  a  single  duck  drop. 

The  Amur  Valley  is  one  of  the  great  game  and  fauna 
centers  of  Siberia.  The  others  are  the  lower  northern 
slopes  of  the  Altai  —  the  gigantic  range  on  the  Siberio- 
Tibetan  border,  and  the  luxuriantly  fertile  TJsurri  prov- 
ince near  the  mouth  of  the  Amur  in  the  hills  of  the 
Pacific  hitherland  above  Vladivostok.  In  all  these  dis- 
tricts, which  have  received  a  good  deal  of  attention  from 
sportsmen,  the  fauna  is  abnormal,  not  a  bit  typical  of  the 
real  Siberia. 

The  tiger  is  in  no  danger  of  extinction  yet  awhile. 
The  Siberian  tiger  is  the  finest  in  the  world.  Amurland 
and  the  TJsurri  are  his  home.  He  is  quite  plentiful  up 
to  a  short  distance  from  the  city  of  Vladivostok.  He 
preys  on  herds  of  small  antelopes. 

Some  years  ago  there  was  a  strong  indication  that  the 
TJsurri  tiger  was  becoming  obsessed  by  wanderlust;  a 
marked  westward  movement  toward  Russia  set  in.  One 
hardy  pioneer,  a  grand  old  male  tiger,  actually  penetrated 
into  the  southern  end  of  Lake  Baikal,  nearly  a  thousand 
miles  from  his  home.  He  was  killed  there,  and  numbers 
of  stray  tigers  were  found  near  the  Manchurian  frontier. 
But  of  late  years  none  has  been  found  outside  the  normal 
zone. 

The  Korean  tiger,  300  miles  south  of  the  Siberian 
frontier  on  the  border  of  Eussian  Manchuria,  is  becoming 
a  serious  menace.  I^Tumbers  of  people  have  recently  been 
attacked  and  killed.  A  few  weeks  before  our  arrival  in 
the  neighborhood,  a  great  man-eater  actually  broke  into 
the  house  of  an  old  resident  in  the  village  of  Pairyangli, 
and,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  a  crowd  of  armed  men  out- 
side, attacked  and  mauled  the  man  and  his  son.  And 
the  beast  is  developing  the  ghastly  habit  of  digging  up 


■'^A  ^^»T> 


"Coaling"'  the  boat  on   the  Amur 


A  huge  stack  of  birch  logs  supplied  the  fuel 


VOYAGING  THKOUGH  AMUELAND      187 

corpses  in  graveyards.  To  quote  one  case,  this  May  a 
tiger  came  down  from  the  mountain  jungles  to  the  grave- 
yard of  Chinsimeon,  and  dug  up  and  devoured  the  re- 
mains of  a  girl  and  two  men,  — 

The  third  day  out  from  Stretensk  we  passed  Komarsk, 
directly  opposite  the  mouth  of  the  Komara  River.  Here 
on  a  cliff  stands  a  huge  iron  cross  inscribed  \vith  the  words 
of  Baron  Korft,  once  governor-general  of  the  province: 
"  Power  lies  not  in  force  but  in  love."  My  companions 
pointed  this  out  with  great  pride  and  told  me  it  commemo- 
rated a  congress  held  at  Khabarovsk  in  1886  to  confer  on 
the  riparian  rights  of  the  Far  East  Russian  provinces. 
This  cross  with  its  humane  inscription,  then,  was  standing 
at  the  time  when  General  Gribski  of  Blagowestchensk 
drove  the  yellow  inhabitants  of  his  town  into  the  Amur 
and  succeeded  in  drowning  about  5,000  of  them ! 

Every  here  and  there  en  route  to  Blagowestchensk  we 
came  to  outcroppings  of  the  Amur  railroad  now  under 
construction.  This  line  was  authorized  by  the  third 
Douma  in  1907,  but  work  on  it  had  been  very  slow. 
When  it  is  completed,  new  life  will  be  brought  to  the 
regions  beyond  Stretensk,  and  a  means  of  transportation 
will  be  assured  that  the  present  line  of  steamers  cannot 
guarantee  because  of  the  continuous  silting  up  of  the 
Shilka  and  Amur.  Thus  Blagowestchensk  will  have  a 
touch  with  civilization  during  the  winter  months.  Erom 
October  to  late  May,  this  city  is  practically  cut  off  from 
the  rest  of  the  world.  Caravans  of  camels  go  down  the 
ice,  but  just  before  the  rivers  close  and  immediately  after 
the  ice  breaks  there  are  weeks  when,  except  for  the  post 
road,  Blagowestchensk  has  no  means  of  communication 
with  either  Khabarovsk  or  Stretensk. 

We  saw  some  queer  boats  on  that  voyage  from  Stretensk. 
There   was   no    standard    shape   or   size.     Each    peasant 


188  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

builder  makes  a  boat  after  his  own  heart  and  conception. 
Most  of  them,  perhaps,  are  along  the  lines  of  those  sickle- 
shaped,  sharp-ended  prows  in  which  the  cannibals  of  the 
picture  books  come  out  to  make  things  unpleasant  for  the 
marooned  South  Sea  trading  brigs.  Dougout  canoes, 
one  piece  hollowed  tree  trunks,  too,  are  numerous  —  some 
so  cunningly  fashioned  as  to  trim  perfectly  on  being 
launched;  others  with  slats  of  wood  nailed  on  one  side 
to  preserve  balance. 

At  Feersova  we  ran  across  an  anomaly  grafted  on  to  an 
anachronism.  Skipping  over  developments  of  a  thousand 
years'  boat-building,  a  worthy  Siberian  peasant  had  taken 
the  earlist  type,  a  heavy,  one-piece,  pine  trunk  canoe,  and 
grafted  on  to  it  a  pair  of  paddlewheels,  one  on  each  side, 
amidships.  Each  wheel  revolved  under  a  neat  curved 
paddlebox,  coated  with  tin,  sides  torn  from  shredded  oil 
canisters.  To  propel  her,  you  sat  on  a  high  seat,  run  across 
from  gunwale  to  gunwale,  grasped  firmly  in  both  hands 
a  bend  in  the  massive  iron  axle-bar  connecting  the  paddle- 
wheels,  and  ground  it  round  and  round. 

A  larch  trunk  —  most  of  the  Shilka  dugouts  are  of 
larch  —  has  to  be  very  old  before  it  attains  the  requisite 
breadth.  We  counted  the  rings  on  an  untrimmed  butt  of 
a  new  craft  lying  by  the  waterside  at  Lamavskaia,  a  canoe 
of  typical  size,  and  found  her  to  be  272  years  old.  Her 
core  had  been  stretching  calmly  up  to  the  Siberian  sky 
on  a  silent  hillside  in  Trans-Baikalia  while  the  Mayflower 
was  still  in  commission ! 

The  captain  of  our  boat  promised  that  Blagowestchensk 
would  be  reached  in  four  days.  The  current  was  swift, 
and  we  all  believed  that  he  would  be  able  to  make  good 
on  this.  But  on  the  morning  of  the  fifth  day  when  he 
came  to  us  with  a  petition  stating  that  the  lateness  of  the 
mails  and  of  his  arrival  was  due  to  no  fault  of  his  own, 


VOYAGING  THROUGH  AMURLAND       189 

but  to  the  poor  channel,  and  asked  us  to  sign  it,  we  knew 
that  Blagowestchensk  was  not  far  off. 

That  noon,  we  turned  a  sharp  curve  in  the  river, 
rounded  a  high  cliff,  and  there  before  us  lay  the  city. 

For  municipal  beautification,  Blagowestchensk-on-Amur 
stands  out  among  Siberian  cities.  It  stretches  several 
versts  along  the  bank,  a  succession  of  parks,  barracks,  ad- 
ministrative buildings,  schools,  warehouses,  Chinese 
cabins,  mills,  modern  shops  and  pretty  residences.  Be- 
neath the  shade  of  avenues  of  trees  it  bustles  —  yes,  this 
Siberian  towoi  actually  bustles  —  with  life  and  business. 

There  are  two  river  fronts,  one  on  the  Amur  and  the 
other  on  the  Zeya.  The  city  lies  in  the  angle  of  these 
two  rivers.  Along  the  Amur  front  runs  a  boulevard,  tree- 
lined  and  wide,  with  here  and  there  the  garden  of  a 
residence  sloping  down  to  the  water's  edge.  Blagowest- 
chensk, as  many  have  observed,  is  the  most  American  town 
in  Siberia. 

Those  who  have  lived  there  for  many  years,  however, 
say  that  its  record  is  none  too  clean,  that  it  lacks  both 
mercantile  and  moral  integrity,  and  that  it  is,  to  a  certain 
degree,  like  that  city  of  Pennsylvania  which  is  said  to  be 
"  corrupt  and  contented."  Gold  is  continually  pouring  in 
from  the  Salinga,  Buria  and  Zeya  fields.  The  govern- 
ment laboratory  sent  off  600  poods  (21,600  pounds)  last 
year,  and  the  Siberski  bank  sent  off  even  more. 

Fortunes  are  made  and  lost  in  a  night  over  gaming 
tables  in  this  town.  A  mushroom  aristocracy,  spawning 
on  a  fortune  of  debts ;  a  garrison  of  8,000  troops,  officered 
in  many  instances  by  men  who  have  made  Russia  too  hot 
to  hold  them ;  a  colony  of  young  German  merchants,  and 
a  drift  of  miners,  rich  Chinese,  coolies,  and  chansonettes 
lend  Blagowestchensk  a  glamour  that  reflects  Bret  ITarte. 
Blagowestchensk  rivals  Irkutsk  in  murder  statistics;  its 


190  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

population  is  far  less  than  that  of  the  capital,  yet  it  is 
a  poor  week  that  does  not  see  five  or  six  cold-blooded 
slaughters. 

Suicides  here,  as  in  all  Siberian  cities,  are  prevalent. 
It  is  an  odd  fact  that  the  Russian  Easter  holidays  are 
popular  with  those  bent  on  self-destruction.  Blagowest- 
chensk  has  had  fifteen  suicides  each  Easter  Week  for  the 
past  three  years. 

The  schools  are  large  and  well  equipped.  Seven 
hundred  girls  attend  the  gymnasium,  and  a  still  larger 
number  of  boys  their  own  school.  An  annex  to  the  boys' 
building,  a  structure  that  would  grace  any  American  city, 
was  opened  two  years  ago.  The  city  supports  a  public  li- 
brary, a  museum,  a  theater  and  a  club,  a  home  for  the  aged, 
crippled  and  orphans,  a  medical  society  that  maintains 
two  dispensaries  and  a  hospital  for  the  poor. 

A  notable  feature  of  the  town  is  its  shops.  The  city 
square  is  lined  with  large  department  stores.  There  is 
enough  business  to  support  four  banks.  The  industries 
include  two  iron  works,  three  saw  mills,  two  soap  factories, 
two  rope  works  and  nine  flour  mills.  Over  a  million  and 
a  half  poods  of  grain  are  exported  every  year  from  the 
city. 

The  population  is  60,000,  half  of  it  Chinese,  even  after 
the  house-cleaning  of  1900,  when,  at  the  Governor's 
orders,  the  entire  Celestial  population  was  driven  into 
the  waters  of  the  Amur,  5,000  drowned  (even  the  authori- 
ties admit  4,500  drownings),  and  their  goods  confiscated  by 
the  citizens.  Nor  has  the  broom  been  laid  aside  for  good, 
for  only  last  winter  all  Jews  were  ordered  out  of  town  — 
many  of  them  cultured  and  respectable  people  —  and 
obliged  to  take  up  residence  in  Saghalin,  a  little  Chinese 
town  the  other  side  of  the  river  in  Manchuria.  Some  of 
them  now  carry  on  contraband  trade  in  vodka  and  alcohol. 


VOYAGmG  THROUGH  AMUELAITD      191 

Thus  in  a  few  months  Saghalin  has  grown  from  a  group 
of  rude  huts  to  a  thriving  city,  one  that  bids  fair  not 
only  to  outrank  its  sister  city,  Aigun,  forty  versts  east- 
ward, but  to  rival  Blagowestchensk  in  time. 

There  is  coming  to  be  a  significant  rivalry  between  the 
Chinese  and  Eussian  settlements  on  the  Amur  bank. 
Wherever  the  Chinese  establish  a  settlement,  the  Russians 
start  one  with  barracks  on  their  Siberian  shore.  A  whole 
crop  of  Russian  barrack  settlements  sprang  up  last  spring, 
many  of  them  established  to  stop  any  attempt  at  landing 
parties  of  Chinese  who  were  fleeing  north  from  the  dread- 
ful plague  around  Kharbin. 

In  the  case  of  Blagowestchensk  and  Aigun,  the  two 
chief  Amurland  vis-a-vis,  Russia  is  taking  a  strong  stand. 
Already  she  has  never  less  than  8,000  troops  in  her  city, 
and  she  is  building  barracks  that  will  accommodate 
40,000.  Students  of  the  Far  East  question  might  take 
note  of  this  fact.  The  Chinese,  by  the  way,  have  only 
600  men  over  at  Saghalin. 

Little  wonder  that  Colonel  Ridatz,  commander  of  the 
Cossack  forces  at  Blagowestchensk,  managed  to  commit  a 
technical  Russian  invasion  of  the  Chinese  Empire  recently, 
when,  one  glorious  winter  night,  his  men  crossed  the  river 
and  invested  Saghalin.  The  incident,  which  happened 
during  the  three  days  Russia  had  given  China  to  answer 
her  ultimatum  on  the  Mongolian  border  misunderstand- 
ing, never  seemed  to  get  to  our  ears  at  home.  It  bears 
recountal. 

Colonel  Ridatz,  a  boon  companion  of  the  Tsar,  a  man 
of  many  medals  and  even  more  sins  against  the  Decalogue, 
got  very  drunk  in  Blagowestchensk  one  afternoon,  and 
with  a  pair  of  companions  crossed  the  frozen  Amur  and 
set  out  to  paint  Saghalin  a  deep  vermilion,  in  spite  of 
any  objections  that  might  be  raised  by  the  Chinese. 


192  THKOUGH  SIBERIA 

To  summarize  and  Bowlderize,  it  appears  tliat  the  three 
of  them  had  a  pretty  lively  and  satisfying  evening  of 
mixed  events.  Then  Ridatz  said  he  had  left  his  purse  at 
home,  and  the  fur  began  to  fly.  One  Chinaman,  incident- 
ally, was  killed  and  another  had  his  arm  cut  off. 

Late  at  night  the  news  filtered  into  Blagowestchensk 
and  reached  the  Cossack  barracks.  'Now  the  Cossacks 
worshiped  Ridatz  and  they  did  not  like  the  notion  of  their 
beloved  commander  languishing,  at  that  moment,  in  a 
locked  room  of  a  Chinese  log  hut.  So  several  hundred  of 
them,  with  their  officers,  scuttled  off  post  haste,  crossed  the 
Amur,  and  gave  the  worthy  citizens  of  Saghalin  a  phenom- 
enally nerve-racking  night.  The  next  morning  the  acting 
governor  of  Blagowestchensk  attempted  to  arrest  Ridatz 
for  his  indiscretion,  but  Ridatz  objected,  and  having  the 
military  at  his  back,  held  the  best  hand.  In  due  time, 
the  Colonel  was  transferred  to  a  new  post  and  there  ap- 
parently the  matter  ended.  Of  course,  it  was  easy 
enough  to  cook  up  sufficiently  grave  representations  as  to 
the  conduct  of  the  people  of  Saghalin  to  satisfy  the  Pekin 
authorities  that  they  well  deserved  all  they  got. 

However,  Ridatz'  little  escapade  is  not  to  be  taken  as  an 
everyday  happening.  Since  a  year  ago  when  the  late 
Premier  Stolphin  visited  the  farther  regions  of  the  Russian 
Empire  and  unearthed  an  appalling  amount  of  graft  and 
misconduct  among  officers  and  officials  in  general,  there 
has  been  a  constant  watch  kept  on  strangers  who  casually 
drop  into  a  Siberian  town.  This  fact  was  brought  home 
to  me  by  a  little  incident  that  might  have  proved  serious. 
With  two  Russians,  I  had  been  dining  in  the  park 
restaurant  at  Blagowestchensk,  listening  to  the  barrack's 
band  play  its  three  tunes  over  and  over  again,  and  casually 
observing  a  group  of  officers  who,  seated  at  a  large  table 
near  by,  appeared  to  have  some  occasion  for  a  celebration 


.VOYAGING  THROUGH  AMUELAND       193 

and  were  doing  it  with  a  consumption  of  liquors  truly 
Rabelaisian.  Among  them  was  a  tall,  handsome  fellow 
who  tossed  off  his  vodka  like  water  and  soon  showed  the 
effects.  Wanderlust  seized  him.  He  must  go  round  and 
visit  with  his  neighbors.  When  he  came  to  our  table  and 
caught  a  glimpse  of  my  very  un-Russian  dress,  he  drew 
back  aghast  and  then  dropped  on  his  knees  before  me. 
At  first  I  could  not  make  out  what  he  was  muttering,  but 
finally  I  discovered  that  he  took  me  for  a  spy  sent  out 
from  the  War  Office  in  Petersburg  to  watch  the  conduct 
of  officers.  It  was  too  good  a  joke  to  stop,  so  I  told 
him  I  would  make  an  exception  of  his  case,  that  I  would 
not  report  him,  if  he'd  go  back  to  his  seat  and  behave 
himself.  As  he  rose  from  his  knees,  I  caught  hold  of 
his  epaulette  and  marked  that  he  was  a  captain  of  the 
Alexandrofski  regiment.  Very  sheepishly  he  walked  back 
to  his  companions  and  communicated  the  dreadful  in- 
formation that  a  "  spotter  "  was  in  their  midst.  Their 
libations  diminished  appreciably. 

Then  the  big  fellow,  having  "  sneaked  in  "  several  more 
vodkas  when  he  thought  I  was  not  looking,  was  confronted 
with  the  idea  that  possibly  he  had  made  a  mistake.  So 
he  sent  a  note  over  to  one  of  my  companions  asking  who 
and  what  I  was.  The  answer  read  "  An  American  news- 
paper man." 

"  Americanshi  correspondent!"  Their  table  was  in  a 
roar.  They  had  been  brutally  deceived.  The  penitent 
captain  drew  out  his  sword  and  challenged  me  to  a  duel 
on  the  spot!  I  showed  him  that  I  had  nothing  but  a 
pocket  knife.  The  crowd  that  collected  acted  as  judges. 
The  pocket  knife  was  indeed  too  small ;  so  I  ordered  my 
carriage  and  went  home.  Fortunately  the  next  day  I  left 
Blagowestchensk. 

There  are  two  phases  of  the  Russian  officer.     Here  is 


194  THEOUGH  SIBEKIA 

another  with  which  I  came  in  contact  while  on  the 
river. 

It  happened  in  the  dining  saloon  of  the  post  boat  from 
Stretensk.  There  were  a  number  of  ash  trays  on  the  table 
bearing  pictures  of  Tolstoi  and  the  improving  aphorism 
that  "  the  happiest  life  is  that  spent  in  the  service  of 
one's  fellow  men."  An  officer  noticed  one  of  these  trays, 
called  the  waiter  and  sent  for  the  steward.  After  having 
been  questioned  where  he  had  procured  the  trays  and  why, 
the  steward  was  sent  out  on  the  deck  with  them  and 
ordered  to  fling  them  overboard. 

I  asked  the  officer  if  he  objected  to  flicking  his  cigarette 
ashes  on  the  face  of  Tolstoi.  But  he  merely  showed  his 
teeth  and  uttered  that  one  word  dreaded  of  all  Russians 
— "Political/'  Beyond  that  he  would  not  discuss  the 
matter. 

Though  broad,  the  Amur  river  has  shifting  shoals  and 
a  treacherous  channel.  The  little  steamers  moor  up 
against  the  bank  at  night,  not  daring  to  navigate  without 
daylight.  Only  four  dredges  work  on  the  entire  3,000 
miles  of  the  river  course,  two  near  the  mouth  at  Nikola- 
ievsk  and  two  by  Blagowestchensk.  Outside  of  govern- 
ment post  boats,  the  river  traffic  is  entirely  in  the  hands 
of  a  combine  of  local  merchants,  which,  controlled  by  no 
set  tariff,  demands  as  much  as  it  can  possibly  get  and 
monopolizes  the  entire  transport  business  of  Amurland's 
one  feasible  means  of  passage.  There  are  few  roads  in 
Amurland,  the  great  Siberian  post  road  to  the  Pacific 
being  merely  a  bridle  track  at  best,  and  often  shifting 
some  miles  this  way  or  that  through  such  circumstances  as 
creeks  being  flooded  or  blocked  with  drift  ice,  or  drought 
rendering  a  hillside  so  slippery  that  it  cannot  be  climbed 
by  horses.  This  old  post  road  from  Stretensk  to  Khaba- 
rovsk cost  15,000,000  roubles  and  was  constructed  for 


O 


VOYAGING  THEOUGH  AMUELAND       195 

military  purposes.  At  present  it  is  in  a  very  poor  state. 
We  rode  several  days  on  it  and  found  traveling  far  from 
easy.  Often  the  bridges  were  poor,  some  of  them  had 
fallen  to  pieces,  and,  in  many  instances,  the  streams  were 
not  bridged  at  all. 

Amurland  is  a  spot  Eussia  seems  most  anxious  to 
colonize,  since  it  is  contiguous  to  northern  Manchuria. 
Count  Mura vie V- A murski  first  navigated  a  steamboat  on 
the  upped  Amur  in  1854.  Shortly  afterward  immigrants 
were  sent  out.  By  1860  there  were  12,000  colonists  on 
the  Amur  and  sixty-one  Cossack  posts.  Every  day  from 
Stretensk  we  passed  barges  laden  with  immigrants  and 
their  cattle.  Each  year  sees  a  list  of  new  villages  placed 
on  the  map. 

The  farmers  who  have  settled  on  the  north  bank  of  the 
river  look  enviously  toward  the  Manchurian  shore.  The 
soil  there,  they  claim,  is  richer.  But  one  political  move 
and  they  and  their  families  and  their  American  harvesting 
machinery  will  cross  the  river  into  Chinese  territory. 

Into  this  population  of  Amurland,  both  the  old  and  the 
new,  has  grown  a  peculiar  rebellion  against  the  Orthodox 
Church.  Fifty  per  cent,  of  the  colonists  are  sectants  — 
the  Baptists,  the  Mullakons  and  the  Star  avers,  or  Old  Be- 
lievers. 

The  Mullakons  absolutely  control  the  mercantile  situa- 
tion. They  own  Blagowestchensk's  nine  flour  mills  and 
the  combine  that  monopolizes  the  river  transportation 
Living  a  Puritanic  life  —  no  drinking,  no  smoking,  bed 
at  eight  and  up  at  five,  no  churches,  no  holy  ikons,  no 
paid  ministry,  no  ritual,  no  holidays  and  feast  days  — 
of  the  simple  type  of  the  Quaker,  they  present  a  marked 
contrast  to  the  members  of  the  Greek  Church. 

Their  villages  boast  of  the  best  schools  and  the  most 
thrifty  and  well-to-do  farmers.     You  can  travel  for  days 


196  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

together  in  Amurland  and  never  see  the  three-armed  gilt 
cross  of  Orthodoxy.  This  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
Archbishop  of  Blagowestchensk  parades  the  length  and 
breadth  of  his  diocese  each  year,  and  is  thus  well  informed 
of  the  poor  stand  being  made  by  his  dogma.  The  Holy 
Synod,  however,  has  decided  to  send  out  missionaries  to 
convert  the  wayward  flock. 

At  Blagowestchensk  I  made  application  for  a  guide  and 
a  band  of  Chinese  soldiers  to  take  me  south  through  the 
mountains  of  the  Iling  Han  Aigun  region  to  Merguen  and 
Tsitsitcar.  My  request  was  answered  by  a  point-blank, 
"  Can't  you  think  of  some  more  comfortable  form  of  sui- 
cide ?  "  The  Hoong-Hooses  had  been  particularly  trouble- 
some of  late  and  no  Russian  would  risk  that  route.  Only 
a  week  or  two  before  a  little  detachment  of  seven  Russian 
soldiers  had  been  cornered  and  murdered  down  the  road, 
two  days'  march  from  the  Amur. 

Various  accounts  of  the  Hoong-Hooses  were  related  to 
me  in  an  offhand  manner  by  my  interpreter.  I  agreed 
with  him  that  there  were  other  ways  of  committing  sui- 
cide. He  gave  me  a  list  of  their  visitations  to  the  neigh- 
borhood, concluding  with  an  attack  that  had  been  made 
only  a  few  days  previous  to  my  coming  to  Blagowestchensk. 
A  great  band  of  the  brigands  had  descended  upon  the  Amur 
village  of  Moho,  opposite  the  Russian  town  called  Ignasi 
near  Blagowestchensk,  and,  capturing  a  number  of  Japa- 
nese merchants,  they  had  demanded  a  ransom  of  10,000 
rouhles  ($5,000)  for  them. 

My  Chinese  friend  went  on  to  explain  that  as  I  insisted 
on  traveling  south  over  the  mountains  of  northern  Man- 
churia, I  would  be  obliged  to  follow  the  regular  course 
prescribed  by  the  brigands.  I  would  be  under  the  humil- 
iating necessity  of  having  to  take  with  me  a  Hoong-Hoos 
intermediary,  known  to  the  general  army  of  thieves,  to 


VOYAGING  THROUGH  AMURLAND       197 

whom  I  would  have  to  give  a  certain  sum  of  money  to 
lay  out  as  he  thought  fit  among  the  Hoong-Hooses  who 
should  come  up  to  annoy  the  expedition.  This  was  very 
un-American,  he  explained,  but  it  saved  time  and  trouble. 

As  I  had  no  idea  of  contributing  my  wordly  goods  to 
Chinese  brigands,  nor  my  body  to  nourish  the  north  Man- 
churian  soil,  I  abandoned  the  trip  overland  to  Merguen 
and  Tsitsitcar. 

So  I  was  obliged  to  bribe  the  mate  of  a  freight  boat 
bound  for  Kharbin  via  the  Soungari,  for  his  bunk;  and 
lest  he  should  change  his  mind,  I  piled  my  goods  aboard 
some  hours  before  the  time  for  sailing.  We  were  to 
start  at  three  o'clock,  but  official  inspection  of  the  boat 
by  the  navigation  authorities  and  some  tinkering  up  in 
the  engine  room,  took  all  afternoon.  We  got  away  in  the 
evening. 

I  was  the  sole  passenger.  The  stern  deck  carried  about 
a  hundred  coolies,  who  sprawled  and  slept  their  time  away 
night  and  day,  in  the  open  air.  No  one  spoke  English, 
though  a  Chinese  deckhand  could  count  up  to  "  zehn  "  in 
German.  He  was  delighted  when  I  taught  him  the 
English  version.  Every  time  he  saw  me  on  the  deck  he 
would  grin  and  tick  off  "  un,  do,  tree,  foe  "  on  his  fingers. 

That  night  we  were  boarded  and  examined  by  the  first 
of  the  Chinese  Imperial  Customs  officers  in  the  person 
of  a  smartly  uniformed  Englishman.  He  examined  the 
ship's  papers  and  we  steamed  away  from  Aigun. 

The  second  morning  out  we  reached  the  junction  of 
the  Soungari  River.  In  a  few  versts  we  should  be  out 
of  Russian  territory. 

I  looked  forward  to  that  moment.  You  see,  I  had  had 
my  passport  stolen  many  weeks  before  on  the  station  of 
Toula,  a  few  hours'  run  east  of  Moscow.  I  had  entered 
Siberia  without  a  passport  and  had  been  going  passport- 


198  THKOUGH  SIBERIA 

less  ever  since  to  the  accompaniment  of  any  amount  of 
bother  with  the  police. 

The  situation  had  been  made  even  more  serious  by  the 
refusal  of  the  United  States  embassy  at  St.  Petersburg  to 
issue  me  an  emergency  passport.  They  refused  on  the 
technical  ground  of  "lack  of  identification."  This,  de- 
spite the  fact  that  I  had  visited  the  embassy,  had 
presented  my  newspaper  credentials,  had  asked  that  my 
route  be  registered  with  the  proper  Eussian  authorities 
in  St.  Petersburg,  which  was  done,  and  despite  the  con- 
soling presence  among  my  papers  at  that  very  moment, 
of  the  card  of  the  first  secretary  of  the  embassy.  My 
Government  having  refused  to  assist  me,  I  had,  in  reality, 
to  "  escape  "  from  Eussian  territory. 

There  are  only  two  ways  of  getting  out  of  the  great 
Eussian  Empire  without  a  passport.  One  is  by  the 
Hoong-Hoos  ridden  overland  route,  which  was  impassable. 
This  was  my  last  chance,  this  river  journey  from  Blago- 
westchensk  to  Kharbin.  Were  there  any  hitch  ahead, 
any  boarding  of  the  Eussian  police  to  vise  passports,  I 
should  be  effectively  trapped  and  compelled  to  sit  down 
in  the  wilds  here,  twiddling  my  thumbs  for  weeks  and 
months  while  embassies  and  the  Department  of  State 
considered  the  case  with  their  accustomed  leisure,  and 
dropped  notes  to  Petersburg  authorities  stating  that  so  far 
as  they  could  ascertain  I  was  not  a  bad  sort  of  person  on 
the  whole,  and  it  would  be  fairly  safe  to  let  me  across  the 
frontier.  I  assure  you  if  you  lose  your  passport  in  Eussia, 
especially  in  the  outlying  regions,  you  are  in  for  a  stagger- 
ing amount  of  bother  and  expense. 

At  its  mouth,  the  Soungari  is  a  couple  of  miles  wide. 
Its  waters  are  muddy  and  so  swift  that  for  miles  after  the 
junction  with  the  clear  stream  of  the  Amur,  they  run  a 
broad  yellow  ribbon  side  by  side  with  the  latter.     The 


Here  and   there  along  the    Soungari   Manchus   boarded   the 

steamer 


VOYAGING  THEOUGH  AMUELAND      199 

hilly  banks  of  the  Amur  left  behind  ns,  we  wound  through 
meadows  and  marshy  and  uncultivated  land.  A  range 
of  hills  was  on  the  horizon.  They  seemed  to  stay  there 
in  miniature  eternally.  We  saw  not  a  hut,  not  a  human 
being.  ISTow  and  then  we  surprised  a  group  of  hawks  or 
crows,  that  fished  on  the  muddy  foreshore  as  we  came 
round  a  bend  in  the  course.  Islands  were  as  plentiful 
as  on  the  Amur  —  low,  marshy,  willow-covered  shoals  of 
mud.  There  were  no  wood  stacks  for  two  days.  The 
outlook  was  utterly  monotonous.  We  stopped  each  night, 
as  usual,  anchoring  as  the  last  gray  streaks  left  the  sky, 
and  starting  again  with  the  first  promise  of  dawn. 

I  was  somewhat  disappointed  when  we  turned  into  the 
Soungari  that  my  passportless  condition  would  not  permit 
of  further  travel  in  Amurland.  I  should  like  to  have 
gone  all  the  way  to  Nikolaievsk,  and  thence  south  again 
to  Khabarovsk  and  to  Vladivostok. 

The  administrative  capital  of  Amurland  is  Khabarovsk, 
a  town  of  17,000  people  that  stands  on  the  heights  near 
the  junction  of  the  Amur  and  Usurri  rivers.  Half  the 
population  is  Chinese  and  Korean.  Laboring  for  a 
ridiculously  low  wage,  these  natives  take  all  the  work  that 
might  be  done  by  low  class  Russians.  Khabarovsk,  has, 
like  its  sister  cities,  a  park,  theater,  club,  and  a  triumphal 
arch.  One  encounters  these  arches  throughout  Siberia. 
They  are  relics  of  the  visit  paid  to  the  country  in  1891  by 
the  present  Tsar,  then  Tsarevitch.  Few  that  we  saw  were 
in  repair,  most  were  falling  to  bits,  and  the  traveler, 
rather  than  run  the  risk  of  having  half  a  ton  of  bricks 
or  a  heavy  timber  tumble  on  his  head,  cautiously  avoids 
going  underneath  them,  and  makes  a  wide  detour. 

Khabarovsk  is  the  center  of  a  great  military  population, 
and  together  with  Vladivostok  forms  the  basis  of  the 
Maritime  military  movements. 


200  THEOUGH  SIBERIA' 

Three  hundred  miles  north  from  Khabarovsk  on  the 
Amur  at  the  point  where  the  river  empties  into  the  Pa- 
cific, stands  Nikolaievsk;  three  hundred  miles  south  is 
Vladivostok,  "  Queen  of  the  East."  Vladivostok  was 
settled  by  traders  a  hundred  years  ago.  To-day  it  has 
a  population  of  80,000.  Built  on  the  slopes  of  several 
hills,  Vladivostok  overlooks  the  Golden  Horn,  or  Novik 
Bay,  a  magnificent  landlocked  harbor  large  enough  to 
shelter  any  navy  in  the  world.  Though  ice-bound  from 
December  to  March,  this  port  serves  for  the  traffic  east  of 
Baikal,  and  since  the  fall  of  Port  Arthur,  is  the  Pacific 
outlet  for  the  Eussian. 

Vladivostok  is  a  fortress,  as  many  unlucky  travelers 
who  have  tried  to  take  photographs  in  it  have  discovered. 
The  budget  for  the  fortifications  alone  amounts  to  $150,- 
000,000.  There  is  a  permanent  garrison  of  20,000  men, 
all  arms  of  the  service.  The  largest  barracks  is  on  Eus- 
sian Island  in  the  bay.  This  bit  of  land  has  a  hill  1,000 
feet  high  that  has  been  capped  with  an  ironstone  fort. 
Several  thirteen  inch  disappearing  guns  are  set  here.  Two 
dynamite  trenches  are  sunk  in  the  saddle  of  the  hill  and 
four  stores  trenches.  The  construction  of  these  is  being 
finished  by  Eussian  and  Chinese  laborers;  no  Japanese 
are  permitted  on  Eussian  Island.  These  trenches  are 
sixty-five  feet  long  and  sixteen  high,  covered  with  a  two 
foot  wall  of  reenforced  concrete,  and  are  connected  with 
the  shore  of  ISTovik  Bay  by  short  railroads.  In  the  harbor 
are  stationed  permanently  two  cruisers  and  a  flotilla  of 
six  torpedo  boats. 

For  twenty-eight  miles  up  the  finger  of  land  on  which 
^Hadivostok  is  situated  are  scattered,  in  the  shoulders  of 
the  hills,  fortifications  armed  with  thirteen  inch  disappear- 
ing guns.  There  are  fortifications  with  like  armament  on 
the  shore  of  Amur  Bay  across  from  Vladivostok. 


VOYAGING  THEOUGH  AMUKLAND       201 

The  position  and  heavy  arming  of  this  port  is  signifi- 
cant when  one  considers  that  Japan  is  only  thirty-six 
hours  away. 

My  good  friend  the  engineer  of  the  Caesar,  gave  me  his 
word  of  honor  that  we  would  reach  Kharbin  in  five  days. 
Five  days  had  gone  now  and  we  were  still  in  the  wilder- 
ness, smacking  mosquitoes  and  smoking  Chinese  cigarettes. 
And  the  mosquitoes  on  the  Soungari,  as  in  other  parts 
of  Siberia  and  Manchuria,  are  a  terrible  pest.  In  sum- 
mer the  cowherds  near  the  taiga  and  on  the  steppes  go 
about  with  great  bags  of  black  muslin  over  their  heads  and 
arms.  Mosquitoes  are  especially  bad  on  parts  of  the 
Amur  shore,  in  the  Usurri  valley  around  Khabarovsk  and 
on  the  Ket  banks  north  of  Krasnoiarsk.  It  is  on  authen- 
tic record  that  in  the  Fourteenth  Century  after  the  Japan- 
ese had  taken  Korea  and  trekked  north,  their  hosts  had  to 
turn  back  from  the  Usurri  district  on  account  of  the  dread- 
ful swarms  of  mosquitoes  that  they  there  encountered. 

Five  days  we  had  gone  and  had  got  only  as  far  as  Sun 
Sing.  This  little  Chinese  port  lies  under  the  shoulder  of 
a  hill,  a  hill  that  I  watched  for  two  days  on  the  sky 
line.  It  is  topped  with  a  large  wooden  cross,  marking 
the  grave  of  some  Russian  missionaries  who  clashed  with 
a  band  of  enthusiastic  anti-Christian  Chinese  —  clashed 
and  were  killed.  There  was  another  cheery  Englishman 
in  charge  of  the  customs  at  Sun  Sing;  he  sent  me  away 
with  an  armful  of  novels  and  a  bottle  of  Scotch,  very  wel- 
come gifts. 

Then  again  the  slow  drive  of  the  big  stern  paddlewheel 
and  the  regular  succession  of  Russian  meals  prepared  by 
a  Chinese  cook.  Beyond  Sun  Sing  there  was  some  at- 
tempt at  apiculture.  A  little  bee  farm  had  been  estab- 
lished on  a  raised  ridge  of  the  marsh.  We  began  to  pass 
boats,  some  of  them  very  odd.     One  in  particular  I  shall 


202  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

never  forget.  A  native  was  propelling  it  by  a  squatting  on 
the  seat  amidships  and  working  a  couple  of  sticks  in  the 
manner  of  a  cripple  in  an  invalid  chair. 

We  gradually  came  to  towns  along  the  Soungari ;  there 
were  Chinese  troops  here  and  there  having  their  field 
practices.  On  the  seventh  day  out  from  Blagowestchensk 
we  sighted  across  the  flats  the  housetops  of  Kharbin,  and, 
passing  under  the  great  eight-span  girder  bridge,  a  Rus- 
sian soldier  with  fixed  bayonet  on  each  span,  we  moored 
off  the  end  of  the  Kitaiskaia. 


L 


Chapter  XIII 

THE  PAGEANT  OF  TSITSITCAR 

EAVING  the  Moscow- Vladivostok  railroad  at  An- 
gangki,  after  sixteen  hours'  journey  into  Man- 
churia, I  turned  mj  traps  over  to  a  couple  of 
Chinese  and  followed  them  across  the  sandy  plain  to  the 
Kitaiski  vogsaal,  the  Chinese  station  for  the  light  railway 
up  to  Tsitsitcar.  And  in  that  brief  half  mile  walk  I 
passed  as  distinctly  out  of  Russia  into  China  as  though  a 
magic  carpet  had  borne  me  in  a  moment  of  time  from  the 
Nevski  Prospekt  to  the  Inner  Palace  of  Pekin.  Eussia 
was  gone! 

The  little  Chinese  station  was  run  by  the  Chinese  for 
the  Chinese.  The  porters  were  Chinese.  The  buildings 
were  Chinese.  A  Chinaman  served  out  tickets,  and  I 
waited  five  Chinese  hours  —  which  is  eight  —  in  a 
Chinese  tea-den  near  by,  where  I  fed  upon  Chinese  viands 
and  drank  of  Chinese  drinks  and  proved  quite  the  popular 
ethnological  exhibit  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  neigh- 
boring mud  hovels. 

Jack's  dog  ticket,  by  the  way,  was  so  imposing  an  af- 
fair —  a  strip  of  paper  eighteen  inches  by  four,  and  full 
of  odd  Chinese  chat  —  that  on  my  return  journey  I 
wished  to  preserve  some  as  trophies. 

There  was  a  hitch  about  those  extra  dog  tickets.     I  had 

offered  the  money  for  four  and  counted  out  four  on  my 

fingers.     Perhaps  the  presence  of  four  dogs  in  a  single 

compartment  of  the  toyshop  light-railed  train  would  not 

203 


204:  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

be  tolerated,  I  thought.  Perhaps  it  was  merely  to  gratify 
his  idle  curiosity  by  seeing  what  manner  of  man  was  this 
who  traveled  aroimd  Manchuria  with  a  perambulating 
kennel,  that  the  ticket  agent  came  out  of  his  retreat.  He 
spied  Jack  and  delivered  an  excited  harangue.  It  then 
struck  me  that  he  wanted  to  see  the  other  three  dogs. 
This,  of  course,  was  unfortunate,  because  non  erant  — ^ 
they  were  not ! 

At  length,  by  dint  of  violent  gesticulations  doorward 
indicative  of  strong  canine  reserves  tethered  without,  I 
prevailed.  The  Celestial  dipped  his  brush  in  a  saucer 
of  ink,  took  a  stack  of  rice  paper  streamers,  and  proceeded 
to  paint  tickets.  Reappearing,  he  took  my  four  dog  fares, 
and,  with  a  bland  smile,  handed  me  a  single  strip. 

I  explained  matters  to  a  grave  bystander  of  superior 
mien  and  said  that  I  had  paid  for  four  tickets  and  re- 
ceived but  one. 

"  Kalasho!  Cheteeli,"  he  said,  pointing  to  a  sprawling 
character  that  looked  like  the  tracks  of  a  hobble-skirted 
spider.  It  was  all  in  order,  he  said ;  the  man  had  made  out 
a  pass  for  four  dogs !  And  it  took  about  ten  minutes  of 
very  plain  speaking  to  get  rid  of  the  puzzled  but  per- 
severing Chinese  conductor  in  the  pale  blue  skirt  who  came 
around  on  the  train  and  wanted  to  know  what  had  happened 
to  my  other  three  dogs. 

But  to  return  to  Angangki. 

After  eight  hours,  in  clattered  the  toyshop  train.  Out 
of  one  of  the  single  first  class  compartments  tumbled  a 
stern  old  Manchu  trader  who  packed  on  to  a  wooden  bul- 
lock cart  much  baggage  —  a  baby  with  lips  and  cheeks 
rouged  a  bright  and  hideous  pink,  his  pretty  little  wife  in 
blue  and  pink  clothing  spangled  with  snakes  and  iri- 
descent flowers ;  and  a  big  blue  gramophone  horn. 

The  one  miniature  German  engine  that  represents  the 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  TSITSITCAK         205 

entire  locomotive  stock  of  tbe  Tsitsitcar  ^Railway  System 
had  arrived  dead-beat  after  its  thirty  mile  journey.  It 
had  to  be  side-tracked  and  fed  \Tith  water  and  willow  logs 
and  coal  dust,  and  then  petted  and  coaxed  with  oil  cans 
and  monkey  wrenches  for  another  hour. 

Aboard  the  train  we  carried  three  armed  guards,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  gentleman  in  the  blue  skirt  who  collected 
tickets.  Eor  the  authorities,  ever  ready  to  overlook 
youth's  exuberant  excesses  within  reason,  have  recently 
become  annoyed  at  the  number  of  holdups  on  that  thirty 
mile  line,  and  are  beginning  to  take  elementary  steps  to 
discourage  the  nuisance.  So  the  three  armed  guards,  big 
loose-limbed  Chinese,  with  unbraided  flowing  locks  falling 
around  their  necks,  sat  on  the  alert,  swinging  their  feet 
over  the  edge  of  the  platform,  each  with  a  glittering,  busi- 
ness-like automatic  rifle  across  his  knees  and  two  full 
leather  cartridge  cases  buckled  to  the  front  of  his  belt. 

It  was  an  odd  run  up  to  Tsitsitcar.  One  might  have 
been  in  lower  Jersey.  Green  meadows  showed,  and  pretty 
villages  nestling  in  their  groves  of  trees,  a  welcome  sight 
after  the  eternal  bare  white  birch  and  gnarled  pine  left 
behind  in  Siberia.  Brick  and  neat  clay-walled  villages, 
instead  of  the  logs  and  timber.  Here  and  there  a  naked 
sandhill.  Many  broad,  brackish  pools,  shallow  and 
rimmed  with  salt.  Duck  flurrying  up  from  the  sedge 
beds  and  willow-scrub,  a  heron  lazily  flapping  away  to  the 
horizon. 

The  Eusslan  residents,  a  handful,  had  fled  from  Tsitsit- 
car. The  Russo-Aslatic  Bank  stood  shuttered  up  and  de- 
serted. Pneumonic  plague;  and  Govenior-General  Jow 
Shoo  Mo  had  not  yet  given  the  assurance  that  it  had  left 
town,  which  was  to  bring  the  bank  staff  back  from  head- 
quarters in  Kharbin. 

If  you  ever  happen  to  find  yourself  in  Tsitsitcar,  you 


206  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

can  do  worse  than  put  up  at  the  native  hostelry  of  Ta  Sin 
Shan.  There  is  no  Russian  hotel  or  lodging  in  the  town. 
Through  an  archway  tunnel  in  the  thick  mud  wall,  you 
enter  a  big  courtyard,  flanked  on  every  side  by  a  row  of 
one  story  fragile  buildings,  their  fronts  merely  paper- 
covered  wooden  lattice  work.  Pull  open  a  door,  and  you 
find  yourself  in  a  little  hall  with  a  wash  basin  and  a 
chest.  To  the  left  and  to  the  right  open  doors  into  rooms 
about  ten  feet  by  fifteen.  One  of  these  is  your  room. 
Rooms  do  not  communicate.  You  and  your  fellow  guest 
across  the  passage  have  your  own  front  door  in  the  com- 
mon hall.  Servants  drop  in  now  and  again  from  the 
kitchen  on  the  other  side  of  the  courtyard. 

Your  room  is  lit  by  two  small  oblong  panes  of  glass  let 
into  the  paper  lattice  facing  the  courtyard.  It  has  no 
shelves  or  closets,  but  three  clothes  hooks  are  on  the  wall. 
Walls  and  ceiling  are  distempered  white.  A  tarnished 
mirror  and  an  atrocious  ornamental  (sic)  clock  of  the 
kind  that  Germany  makes  to  sell  to  the  heathen,  hang  on 
one  walk  On  the  table  stand  a  big  pair  of  china  vases 
and  another  horrible  clock.  There  is  a  third  clock  over 
on  a  stand  by  the  window.  'None  of  them  goes.  Turning 
your  back  on  the  window,  you  face  a  platform  covered 
with  a  thick  felt  rug,  that  occupies  the  far  third  of  the 
room. 

It  was  rather  an  uncanny  sensation  at  first,  strolling 
about  the  streets  of  Tsitsitcar  among  thousands  of  Chinese 
with  never  a  European  in  sight.  There  are  no  modern 
institutions.  The  dusty  streets,  the  thronged  bazaars, 
the  mud-walled  houses,  the  odd  ways  of  doing  things,  re- 
moved the  place  so  utterly  from  the  Occident.  One  seemed 
to  be  in  a  new  world,  not  merely  in  a  new  country. 

I  attracted  a  lot  of  notice.  Children  ran  screaming 
from  my  path,  just  as  our  apprehensive  babies  at  home 


A  Chinese  exponent  of  "ihc  smuijIl;  life"  near    I'^iisilcar 


J  iiij  Tsitsitenr  harlicr  shavua  his  patrons  in  the  street 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  TSITSITCAR         207 

clear  out  from  the  path  of  a  real  live  pigtailed  Chinaman 
—  but  a  "  foreign  devil  "  must  be  much  more  of  an  infant 
menace  than  a  mere  yellowish  man  with  an  amiable  ex- 
pression and  a  queue! 

I  did  not  like  the  looks  of  the  people  to  begin  with.  The 
first  morning  I  met  4,002  men  who  looked  as  though  they 
would  have  cut  my  throat  on  the  spot  for  the  sum  of  ten 
cents,  and  then  refunded  to  my  executors  eight  cents  in 
stamps  as  conscience  money  for  an  excess  charge. 

That  is  the  fault  of  the  western  nations  in  associating 
the  Chinese  chiefly  with  romantic  crime.  Wherever, 
on  Mott  Street,  New  York,  in  Limehouse,  London,  or  in 
the  sundry  back  streets  on  the  hill  of  Montmartre,  two 
or  three  good  inoffensive  Chinese  households  gather  to- 
gether and  pass  their  hard-won  evening's  leisure  with  a 
game  of  cards,  a  chat  or  a  smoke,  we  thumbmark  that  spot 
as  an  opium  den,  a  haunt  of  infamy,  a  gambling  joint,  a 
congregation  of  thugs  and  murderers,  or  a  rendezvous  of 
dauntless  kidnapers.  A  virtuous  Chinese  to  the  respect- 
able American  with  a  New  England  conscience  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms. 

The  Chinese  are  a  chattering,  bright,  vivacious  people, 
laughing  and  smiling,  breaking  into  song,  joking  and  pet- 
ting children  and  dogs,  and  taking  their  bird  cages  out 
to  the  park  on  holidays.  They  carve  and  sculpture  and 
paint  their  signposts  and  town  gates  and  roof  gables. 
They  make  their  places  of  worship  spots  of  rare  beauty. 
They'll  have  none  of  your  little  corrugated  iron  Eethels 
behind  rows  of  iron  spikes.  Their  temples  are  pitched  in 
lovely  groves,  spots  redolent  with  the  scent  of  flowers, 
the  music  of  birds,  cool  breezes  and  the  gentle  shimmer 
of  checkered  sunbeams  slanting  do\vn  through  gaps  in  bil- 
lowy avenues  of  foilage  to  ancient  gray  stone  pathways. 

I  watched  some  mischievous  boys  clamber  up  the  steep 


208  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

stone  steps  before  a  temple  doorway,  and,  wliile  the  old 
priest  slumbered  in  his  chair,  tug  at  the  bell  rope.  In  a 
Christian  country,  the  infuriated  incumbent  would  have 
promptly  risen  up  in  his  wrath,  cuffed  the  nearest  lad, 
and,  that  evening,  called  upon  the  parents  of  all  and  sun- 
dry with  stern  accusations  and  demands  for  prompt  pun- 
ishment. But  this  being  only  a  Buddhist  temple  grove  in 
faraway  heathen  China,  the  old  priest  woke  up  with  a 
start  and  smiled  and  shook  his  finger  roguishly  at  the  gig- 
gling knot  of  little  fellows  scuttling  down  the  broad 
weather-worn  stone  steps.  A  moment  later  he  had  them 
all  up  by  his  side  exploiting  with  glee  the  contents  of  a 
cabinet  of  queer  temple  accessories. 

Two  sounds  used  to  wake  me  early  each  morning;  the 
cries  of  hucksters  and  the  expiring  shriek  of  pigs.  The 
streets  were  full  of  hucksters,  men  with  a  couple  of  bas- 
kets of  grain  or  vegetables  slung  up  at  either  end  of  a 
long  pole  balanced  on  the  shoulder.  The  genius  loci  of 
Tsitsitcar  is  the  wail  of  the  dying  pig.  The  town  seems 
to  kill  pigs  incessantly  day  and  night. 

Leaving  the  gates  of  Ta  Sin  Shan's  hostelry  one  morn- 
ing, I  cannoned  into  a  barber,  twanging  a  big  tuning  fork 
and  crying  out  attractive  quotations  for  shaving  and  hair- 
braiding.  The  barbers  have  an  elaborate  outfit  —  a  stool 
for  the  customer,  a  stove,  a  brass  bowl  and  quantities  of 
combs  and  odd  triangular  razors  and  loose,  homemade 
scissors.  They  work  in  the  open  street.  You  button- 
hole a  passing  barber,  and  down  goes  his  stool.  You  seat 
yourself  while  he  stirs  up  the  charcoal  stove,  mixes  some 
powders  and  gives  the  brass  bowl  the  barber's  courtesy 
whisk  with  a  cloth.  Whereupon  you  are  shampooed  on 
the  spot. 

A  couple  of  pilgrims  passed,  soliciting  alms.  They 
knelt  before  every  disengaged  shopkeeper  in  the  bazaar, 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  TSITSITCAR         209 

bowing  their  foreheads  till  they  touched  the  dust.  Some- 
times the  shopkeeper  ran  forward  and  raised  them  bodily, 
but  the  etiquette  in  general  was  to  take  a  few  paces  for- 
ward and  beckon  them  up  with  a  kindly  gesture.  I 
watched  a  dozen  of  these  prostrations  and  never  saw  a 
coin  pass  hands.  There  was  only  that  affectionate  rush 
to  lift  the  pilgrim,  like  a  family  Bible  woodcut  of  the  re- 
turn of  the  Prodigal  Son.  One  wished  that,  at  about  the 
fifth  of  these  affecting  but  unlucrative  demonstrations,  the 
pilgrims  would  resort  to  sarcasm,  but  they  merely  looked 
hot  and  thirsty  and  annoyed  as  they  brushed  each  suc- 
cessive powdering  of  dust  from  their  brows. 

Eound  the  corner  into  the  thronged  bazaar  came  His 
Exalted  Excellency,  Governor-General  Jow  Shoo  Mo  of 
the  Province  of  Tsitsitcar,  a  power  in  the  north  of  the 
Chinese  Empire,  who  is  entitled  to  wear  the  coveted  red 
glass  ball  on  the  peak  of  his  white  lamp-shade  hat,  whose 
displeasure  can  spell  summary  death  to  any  one  of  some 
hundred  thousand  men.  On  ahead  traveled  a  smart  lit- 
tle Chinese  soldier  in  khaki  and  puttees,  followed  by  two 
native  mounted  police  in  dark  blue  canvas,  their  queues 
flying  behind  in  the  breeze.  A  four-wheeled  hack  ap- 
peared, a  squat  American  four-wheeler,  changed  only  by 
a  pair  of  blue  enamel  panels  and  a  big  glass  window  in 
the  rear,  and  bright  nickel-plated  rods  for  the  two  bare- 
footraen  to  cling  to.  Drawn  by  a  couple  of  unmatched 
little  horses,  this  hybrid  state  equipage  swept  swiftly  by, 
giving  one  a  glimpse  of  a  stern,  erect  figure  within,  scar- 
let tassels  and  a  peacock  feather  dangling  from  his  con- 
ical white  hat.     A  mounted  soldier  brought  up  the  rear. 

But  if  Jow  passes  swiftly,  his  passing  is  far  from 
silent.  In  fact,  he  is  quite  the  "  big  noise  "  both  literally 
and  metaphorically.  Eor  there  is  a  loud  bell  under  the 
state  four-wheeler  of  Tsitsitcar,  a  bell  rung  by  the  foot- 


210  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

man  in  the  rear.  This  is  constantly  being  clanged,  partly 
to  inform  the  police  of  His  Excellency's  whereabouts  in 
the  labyrinth  of  narrow,  high-walled  streets;  nominally 
in  case  of  a  hostile  demonstration,  but  chiefly,  one  suspects, 
to  show  what  a  really  august  person  is  His  Excellency 
Governor-General  Jow.  He  dashes  about  town  with  the 
clamor  of  a  fire  engine. 

The  shops  of  Tsitsitcar  are  open-fronted.  Over  sun- 
flooded  benches  of  wares  your  glance  travels  back  into  dim 
elusive  interiors,  small  wooden-latticed  windows  throwing 
glittering  pencils  of  light  on  the  scraps  of  rich  red  and 
blue,  gilt  and  green  carvings,  or  over  the  stacks  of  curious 
earthenware  and  vessels  of  burnished  brass,  pencils  of 
light  that  only  emphasize  the  gloom  where,  by  their  glow- 
ing braziers,  squat  old  men  smoking  pipes. 

Quite  a  number  of  shops  in  Tsitsitcar  specialize  in  books 
and  shoes,  books  at  one  counter,  shoes  at  another,  each 
pair  neatly  done  up  in  white  paper.  And  there  are  many 
street  stalls  that  sell  duck  eggs  and  cigarettes,  just  duck 
eggs  and  cigarettes  and  nothing  more.  The  cigarettes  come 
from  England  and  are  sold  in  cartons  lettered  in  English. 
It  is  a  happy  thought  of  the  manufacturers  —  or,  perhaps, 
it  is  a  still  happier  coincidence  —  that  the  most  popular 
brand  is  called  "  Pirates,"  "  Pirates  "  in  this  metropolis 
of  the  Hoong-PIooses ! 

At  one  of  the  booths  in  the  main  bazaar  of  Tsitsitcar 
they  sell  strips  of  shining  brown,  glutinous,  ribbon  seaweed. 
At  another  sat  a  pair  of  letter  writers.  They  sat  on  tall 
chairs  under  a  red  oilskin  sunshade,  surrounded  by  tables 
and  stands  and  sticks  of  ink,  pen-brushes,  stationery  and 
reference  books,  gazed  on  with  awe  by  the  illiterate  poor. 
Over  there  squats  a  cobbler  with  his  gear  spread  out  in 
the  dust.     The  cobblers  of  Tsitsitcar,  like  the  letter-writera, 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  TSITSITCAR         211 

the  barbers,  the  doctors  and  pretty  much  everyone  else, 
work  in  the  open  street. 

The  doctors  work  in  teams  of  two.  They  rig  up  a  tent 
furnished  with  chairs  and  a  counter  spread  with  bushels 
of  trash  —  love  potions,  charms,  incantations,  neck  orna- 
ments to  scare  away  devils,  potato  bugs  and  the  plague  — 
a  dozen  dirty  little  bottles  of  simple  medicaments,  glycer- 
ine, iodine,  spirits  of  nitre,  stuff  in  common  demand  in  the 
drug  store.  Pinned  to  the  side  of  the  tent  are  gruesome 
colored  native  anatomical  charts. 

Up  comes  a  patient.  The  doctor  pushes  him  into  a 
chair  and  then  and  there  hears  his  tale  of  woe  or  dresses 
his  wound  or  does  anything  that  has  to  be  done,  all  of  it 
without  the  least  privacy.  The  patients  return  a  stolid 
glare  to  the  gaping  crowd  around  and  do  not  seem  to 
object  to  them  in  the  slightest  degree.  The  bigger  the 
crowd,  the  more  delighted  the  doctor,  naturally.  I  had 
not  the  fortune  to  come  in  at  a  leg  amputation  but  I  was 
favored  with  the  sight  of  several  exceedingly  insanitary 
and  painful  operations  being  summarily  performed  in  a 
haze  of  whirling  dust. 

There  are  plenty  of  undertakers  in  Tsitsitcar,  doing 
business  in  spacious  shops  piled  with  huge,  gayly  painted 
coffins  —  usually  vermilion.  A  Manchurian  undertaker's 
is  quite  a  cheery  place.  There  are  the  great  red  and  blue 
coffins  ornamented  with  gold  and  black  in  bold  designs. 
There  are  shelves  and  stacks  of  graveyard  gear,  like  circus 
properties  —  little  low  carts  for  pulling  children  along  in 
the  procession,  candles,  shrines,  fireworks,  stacks  of  paper 
money,  joss  sticks,  racks  of  bravely  painted  swords  and 
spears  and  cudgels  for  the  use  of  the  dead. 

If  your  purse  is  shallow,  you  needn't  buy  all  these  ac- 
cessories.    You  can,  with  most  of  the  poorer   Chinese, 


212  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

make  your  coffin  at  home  during  the  long  winter  evenings, 
and  just  drop  around  into  the  undertaker's  for  a  really 
high-class  lid,  something  with  painted  stalks  and  water 
lilies  and  piles  of  fruit.  One  undertaker  in  the  town  has 
a  sideline  in  fishmongery:  rows  of  flayed  and  drying  fish 
sway  from  lines  of  cord  suspended  from  one  towering  pile 
of  coflSns  to  another. 

The  bazaar  has  many  eating  houses,  open-fronted  and 
full  of  stoves  on  which  savory  dishes  are  frying.  The  Oc- 
cidental restaurant  cook,  perspiring  over  his  glowing  range 
throughout  the  hot  summer  months,  would  envy  his  brother 
artiste  in  Tsitsitcar.  The  Tsitsitcar  stove  is  a  neat,  port- 
able little  affair.  The  cook  gets  a  stout,  shallow  wicker 
basket  and  fills  it  with  clay;  builds  up  clay  walls  around 
the  brim,  and  cements  to  the  top  an  iron  bowl.  Each  of 
the  six  or  eight  cooks  has  two  or  three  of  these  stoves  to 
tend,  and  places  them  practically  wherever  he  likes.  On 
cold  days  he  retreats  into  the  shelter  of  the  shop.  When 
it  is  warm,  he  comes  out  to  the  edge  of  the  street  and 
here  passes  the  day  in  the  fresh  air. 

The  people  of  the  city  have  a  little  park  perched  on  a 
hill  on  the  outskirts  by  the  jail,  the  only  path  of  greenery 
in  the  place.  Only  two  or  three  acres  in  extent,  it  has  a 
bijou  ornamental  lake,  high-banked,  tiny  paths  winding 
around  the  water's  edge.  Red  legged  cranes  strut  among 
the  rushes,  and  there  is  a  delightful  high-peaked  zigzag 
bridgelet  tinted  in  reds  and  greens  and  blues  with  dragons 
at  both  approaches,  dragons  snorting  fiery  wooden  flames 
from  their  nostrils. 

Men  have  a  pretty  custom  of  taking  their  pet  birds  for 
an  outing  in  the  park  as  we  would  take  our  dogs.  Every 
other  native  of  the  town  has  his  sweet-throated  nightin- 
gale. Early  in  the  morning  one  encounters  a  long  stream 
of  young  men,  chattering  boys  and  grave  old  graybeards, 


-M^\  V 


'  ""JPi'"  I  uopw^w— imBtppl 


^AfHirJdJ 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  TSITSITCAR         213 

each  with  his  spacious,  semi-circular  bird  cage,  wending 
its  way  up  the  hill  to  the  park.  There  they  hang  their 
cages  on  low  willow  branches  and  leave  them  amid  the 
foliage  till  it  is  time  to  return. 

Opposite  the  park  is  the  jail.  It  is  very  dirty,  very 
tumbledown,  but  rich  in  criminal  lore.  For  here  are 
confined  the  Hoong-Hooses  condemned  to  death,  and  in  the 
field  behind  the  jail  Tsitsitcar's  far-famed  gigantic  ex- 
ecutioner slashes  off  the  heads  of  these  offending  brigands. 

The  Hoong-Hooses,  the  murderous  brigands  of  Man- 
churia, constitute  an  element  that  must  be  taken  into  ac- 
count while  journeying  through  Amurland  and  Man- 
churia. They  are  a  curious  and  sinister  people.  Their 
origin  is  veiled  in  obscurity.  Probably  they  spring  from 
an  outlawed  band  of  Chinese  robbers,  who,  driven  to  the 
northern  frontier  of  the  Celestial  Empire  long  ago,  there 
made  themselves  at  home.  They  are  known  to  have  been 
harassing  the  Manchus  for  at  least  a  couple  of  centuries. 

No  one  used  to  take  much  notice  of  the  Hoong-Hooses 
until  the  Pussian  railroad  came  and  the  Tsar's  ministers 
poured  troops  — "  station  guards  " —  into  Manchuria  for 
the  avowed  purpose  of  protecting  the  line.  At  that  day 
the  European  man-in-the-street  smiled  and  tapped  his  nose 
when  you  spoke  of  Hoong-Hooses.  They  were  regarded 
as  a  purely  mythical  menace  conjured  up  by  Pussia  to 
placate  the  suspicious  world  powers. 

The  Hoong-Hooses,  however,  were  and  are  to-day  a  very 
live  reality.  They  have  cost  Pussia  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  roubles  in  railway  repairs  and  the  lives  of  hundreds 
of  men.  During  the  Pusso-Japanese  War,  you  may  recol- 
lect, the  Japanese  were  shrewd  enough  to  spend  a  lot  of 
money  upon  employing  them  to  attack  commissariat  trains 
and  blow  up  bridges,  and,  according  to  contract,  they  suc- 
ceeded in  making  themselves  an  abominable  nuisance. 


214  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

To  this  very  day  they  menace  Manchuria  nearly  as 
gravely  as  ever.  The  Russian  railroad  trains  running 
south  from  Kharbin  to  Chang-Chun,  the  frontier  of  the 
Japanese  sphere  of  influence,  all  carry,  in  case  of  attack, 
a  couple  of  heavily  armed  Cossacks  on  every  coach. 

The  Hoong-Hooses  are  well  organized,  and  they  fight 
after  the  manner  of  our  American  Indian.  When  the  mo- 
ment comes  for  them  to  deliver  their  blow,  they  are  on 
the  spot  in  their  hundreds,  well  armed,  splendidly  mounted, 
resourceful  and  merciless.  An  idea  of  their  armament 
can  be  gained  from  the  statement  made  to  us  by  an  Irish 
contractor  who  came  originally  from  ]!^ew  York  City  and 
who  lived  in  a  little  village  north  of  Vladivostok.  He 
carried  on  a  regular  trade  in  firearms  and  ammunition 
with  the  Hoong-Hooses.  Automatic  pistols  he  sold  for 
$75  apiece,  and  their  cartridges  for  $5  a  hundred. 

When  the  mailed  fist  of  retribution  attempts  to  clutch 
the  Hoong-Hooses,  lo  and  behold!  they  have  dissolved 
like  sugar  in  a  teacup,  each  man  has  gone  his  own  way, 
an  army  vanished  into  thin  air !  ISTow  and  then  the  Hoong- 
Hooses  will  surround  and  attack  a  mine,  murdering  the 
manager  and  all  the  officers,  and  stealing  everything  of 
value  that  they  can  lay  their  hands  upon.  Generally, 
however,  it  is  the  Manchu  farmer,  a  simple,  inoffensive 
countryman,  who  is  their  victim.  He  is  assessed  by  them 
and  taxed  up  to  the  hilt.  So  long  as  he  can  pay,  well  and 
good.  When  he  can't  —  a  knife  thrust  or  a  bullet.  The 
Hoong-Hooses  have  developed  the  practice  of  private  in- 
quiry agent  to  a  fine  art.  Their  spies  are  everywhere. 
There  is  hardly  a  farm  in  the  length  and  breadth  of  Man- 
churia which  does  not  unwittingly  employ  a  man  in  league 
with  the  Hoong-Hooses.  When  farmer  Chun  Sin  Po 
comes  into  a  nice  little  legacy  from  his  Uncle  Wo,  the 
Canton  tea  merchant,  the  news  travels  to  the  brigands, 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  TSITSITCAR         215 

and  they  are  certain  to  call  and  demand  half  or  three- 
quarters  of  it.  They  rarely  kill  if  the  goose  will  continue 
laying  the  golden  egg. 

In  the  case  of  a  raid  on  Russian  property,  the  owner 
goes  to  the  Chinese  governor  of  the  district  with  his  com- 
plaint. The  governor,  in  due  time,  reports  the  matter  to 
the  police.  The  Chinese  police  hold  it  a  point  of  honor 
to  apprehend  the  culprit  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  po- 
sition is  somewhat  complicated  by  half  the  Hoong-Hooses 
being  deserters  from  the  police  force  and  the  army.  But 
though  the  spirit  is  willing,  the  flesh  is  weak.  The 
Chinese  police  are  passing  lazy.  So  their  usual  course  is 
to  stroll  into  the  jail  where  a  large  assortment  of  mixed 
and  impecunious  criminals  is  always  on  hand,  pick  out 
a  man  wnth  a  bad  record,  buy  a  couple  of  additional  wit- 
nesses, and  convict  the  unhappy  wretch  of  the  crime  in 
question.  If  he  has  money  enough  to  make  good  the 
prosecutor's  loss  and  to  bribe  the  police  handsomely,  he 
usually  manages  to  escape.  In  the  other  event  he  is  tor- 
tured for  ten  days  or  so  till  he  can  stand  no  more,  and 
then  put  on  one  side  until  the  next  execution  day. 

Hoong-IIooses  are  executed  in  batches  usually  in  the 
Field  of  Death  here  at  Tsitsitcar  in  central  Manchuria. 
Tsitsitcar  is  the  center  of  their  activities.  They  come  in 
regularly  with  their  makings  and  promptly  deposit  them 
with  the  Russo-Asiatic  Bank  here. 

Execution  Day  at  Tsitsitcar  is  a  public  holiday.  Early 
in  the  morning  everyone  packs  a  lunch  basket,  takes  his 
or  her  best  sunshade  and  the  bird  cage,  and  starts  away 
for  the  Field  of  Death.  The  Lord  High  Executioner,  a 
gigantic  and  most  unlovely  person  to  look  upon,  superin- 
tends getting  the  wretches  out  of  the  rumbling,  three- 
spoked  bullock  carts,  arranges  them  in  a  kneeling  posture 
with  the  light  in  the  right  way  for  any  Russian  officer 


216  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

who  may  be  standing  by  with  his  camera,  and  then,  with- 
out any  further  delay,  strolls  around  and  slashes  off  their 
heads  with  his  great  sword. 

The  heads  are  taken  to  the  Eusslan  consulate,  almost 
the  only  foreign  dwelling  in  the  big  native  city.  The 
Russians  have  to  inspect  them  to  see  that  justice  has 
been  done  —  or  injustice,  as  the  case  may  be.  After  this 
the  Chinese  receive  back  the  heads. 

'Now  in  the  case  of  the  execution  of  the  ordinary  crim- 
inal, the  head  and  body  are  returned  to  the  relatives  of 
the  dead  man.  Tliey  at  once  see  about  having  them 
sewed  together  again  before  burial.  But  here  the  Gov- 
ernment steps  in.  It  would  obviously  lower  the  moral 
tone  of  Heaven,  explains  Pekin,  to  have  the  executed 
criminals  strolling  about  like  any  gentleman,  corrupting 
the  innocent  outlook  of  who  knows  how  many  guileless 
angels ;  yet  we  do  not  want  to  interfere  with  the  enjoyment 
of  Heaven  by  men  who  have  expiated  their  crimes  here 
below.  So  it  is  ordered  that  the  heads  of  the  executed 
criminals  shall  be  sewn  on  the  wrong  way,  facing  back- 
wards. Thus,  in  the  world  to  come,  men  who  have  not 
been  all  they  might  have  been  may  be  recognized  at  sight 
and  treated  with  a  necessary  tinge  of  hauteur  by  law- 
abiding  citizens  of  Zion. 

The  Hoong-Hooses,  however,  have  been  making  them- 
selves such  a  nuisance  that  a  dreadful  punishment  is  visited 
upon  them.  Their  heads  are  never  returned  to  their  rela- 
tives. The  Chinese  police  put  them  in  wicker  baskets 
and  hang  them  on  trees  along  the  country  roads  as  a 
warning  to  prospective  recruits  to  the  ranks  of  the  brig- 
ands. The  significance  of  this  measure  is  chiefly  that 
in  Heaven  the  Hoong-Hooses  shall  have  no  heads.  Their 
bodies  shall  be  walking  with  the  elect,  to  satisfy  humani- 
tarian scruples,  but  they  shall  neither  see,  nor  hear,  nor 


Bringing   [\\<j    ilMiniL^  Nooses  to  judgment.     Tliree  views  of 
execiUi;in    day   at   Tsitsitcar 


THE  PAGEANT  OF  TSITSITCAE         217 

smell,  nor  taste  —  in  fact,  shall  have  a  rather  dull  time. 

Naturally  you  ask,  as  we  did  a  worthy  Chinese  at  Dairen, 
what  is  the  use  of  a  Chinese  Heaven  if  you  get  all  the 
thugs  and  murderers  participating  in  ethical  bliss  ?  A 
polite  Chinese  will  change  the  conversation  at  this  point 
and  pretend  he  never  heard  the  question.  You  see,  it  is 
rather  embarrassing  to  explain  to  a  man  across  the  dinner 
table  that  Gehenna  is  especially  reserved  for  foreigners ! 

The  bodies  of  the  executed  Hoong-Hooses  are  tied  up 
to  posts  or  spread-eagled  against  fallen  trees  in  the  Eield 
of  Death  for  about  a  week,  after  which  they  may  be  taken 
away  by  anyone  rash  enough  to  report  himself  or  herself 
a  relative  of  the  deceased. 

I  packed  Jack,  my  traps  and  myself  into  a  bullock 
cart  and  reached  the  station  full  early.  All  the  Japanese 
colony  of  Tsitsitcar,  some  thirty  men  and  women,  came 
to  see  off  two  or  three  of  their  people  who,  from  their 
mountainous  stacks  of  luggage  and  steamer  chairs,  ap- 
peared to  be  going  back  to  the  old  country.  The  women 
were  all  in  their  native  costumes,  but  one  girl  stumbled 
about  in  high-heeled  tan  shoes  topped  by  passionate  purple 
stockings. 

A  woman  was  carrying  on  her  back  a  little  slant-eyed, 
black  topknotted,  chattering  bundle  in  a  rich  red  flowered 
kimono,  an  animated  Japanese  doll.  Presently  the  mother 
lifted  it  down  and  for  a  moment  left  it  to  its  own  devices. 
It  crossed  the  station  to  a  tattered  Chinese  ragamuffin  who 
lolled  against  a  post,  and  dealt  him  a  deliberate  vindictive 
kick  with  its  little  wooden  shoe.  It  probably  had  over- 
heard some  of  its  father's  typical  Japanese  remarks  about 
the  Chinese.  The  mother  ran  over  and  remonstrated; 
and  the  father  rebid^ed  it,  and,  after  the  illogical  manner 
of  pious  fathers  in  every  clime,  bought  the  baby  a  big 


218  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

juicy  pear.  She  took  a  bite.  Then,  seeing  the  parents 
engrossed  in  conversation  once  more,  Baby  toddled  off 
and  solemnly  presented  the  pear  to  the  astonished  little 
Chinese  boy.     It  was  a  pretty  entente. 

The  costume  of  the  Japanese  men  at  the  station  that 
morning  was  original  in  the  extreme.  Each  wore  a  mix- 
ture of  native  and  English  garments. 

A  wild  clangor  came  down  the  breeze,  and  the  great 
Governor-General  Jow  made  his  appearance,  amid  cring- 
ings and  bowings  and  scrapings,  to  bid  farewell  to  the 
departing  Japanese  merchants.  The  Japanese  are  a 
power  in  the  land  since  their  clean-cut  occupation  of 
Korea  and  southern  Manchuria,  and  the  potentates  of 
northern  China  are  prudently  making  themselves  per- 
sonce  gratae. 

While  the  crowd  respectfully  formed  an  aisle,  the  tall 
governor,  resplendent  in  gorgeous  flowered  silk  and  all 
the  trinket  trappings  of  his  rank,  strode  up  and  down, 
chatting  with  a  swarthy  little  Japanese  trader  at  his  side. 

JN'ow  this  is  what  the  Japanese  trader  wore:  a  little 
tight-fitting  check  cloth  cap  of  the  kind  that  was  fash- 
ionable at  Atlantic  City  in  the  late  '70s,  a  very  dusty, 
rusty  black  frock  coat,  a  native  silk  vest,  a  gaudy  silk 
scarf  of  rainbow  tints  speckled  with  horseshoes,  tight 
cycling  knickerbockers,  military  puttees,  and  a  pair  of 
elastic-sided  boots! 


ChAPTEiR   XIV 

KHARBIN  AFTER  THE  PLAGUE 

i  4"1k  T/E'T  .  .  .  Neitchevo  nietl"  sang  out  tlie  Rus- 
1^^       sian  officer  whom  we  encountered  at  Kharbin 
-^  ^       this  twenty-first  day  of  May,  1911.     "  We've 
got  it  under  at  last !  " 

"  We've  got  it  under  at  last !  "  That  is  the  joyous 
cry  going  up  on  every  hand,  the  keynote  of  Kharbin  to- 
day. The  Angel  of  Death  has  spread  its  raven  wings  and 
flown  away  at  last  from  the  plague-stricken  capital  of 
northeast  Asia. 

The  streets,  the  restaurants,  the  hotels,  the  markets  are 
thronged  with  smiling  crowds.  Petersburg  artistes  are 
giving  drama  at  the  theater.  A  week  or  two  back,  Khar- 
bin  saw  its  first  aeroplane  flight.  Trade  is  heavy. 
Money  is  plentiful.  And  a  warm  sun  beats  down  from 
dawn  to  dusk  on  the  spacious  cobbled  streets  and  the 
green  mist  of  the  spring  foliage  in  the  Preestan, 

The  Moskovski  barracks,  the  dreaded  plague  hospital, 
has  cremated  the  remains  of  its  very  last  patient.  For 
a  while  the  Black  Death  clung  to  Mukden,  down  south, 
but  the  sunshine  and  the  warm  days  of  spring  came  to 
accomplish  what  the  doctors  were  unable  to  effect,  and 
now  even  Mukden,  Dairen  and  Chie-Foo  are  free  from 
plague. 

''  We  laiow  little  or  no  more  about  the  pneumonic  plague 

than  we  did  before,"  said  Mr.  ISTorman  of  the  Russo-Asiatic 

219 


220  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

Bank  here  when  talking  to  us  this  morning  of  Kharbin's 
recent   ordeal. 

"  It  is  so  uncertain  in  its  infection.  There  was  the 
case,  for  instance,  of  the  medical  student  Mameltov.  He 
came  down  to  the  station  one  afternoon  to  see  off  a  party 
of  relatives.  He  kissed  them  all  good-bj.  That  very 
evening  he  went  down  with  plague  and  died  the  next 
day.  They  telegraphed  up  the  line  and  had  his  relatives 
stopped  and  rigorously  quarantined.  It  seemed  certain, 
to  those  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the  case,  that  all 
would  die.     Yet  iiot  one  developed  the  malady. 

"  There  was  a  population  of  110,000  in  Kharbin  a  few 
months  ago  —  30,000  Europeans,  mostly  Russians,  and 
80,000  Chinese.  Great  numbers  of  Chinese  fled  during 
the  plague.  It  is  estimated  here  that  quite  10,000  Chinese 
perished,  with  many  Europeans.  Whole  neighboring  vil- 
lages have  been  wiped  out,  have  disappeared  from  the 
marshy  plain  along  the  banks  of  the  Soungari. 

"  Much  could  have  been  done  to  quell  the  epidemic  in 
its  earlier  stages  had  the  Chinese  only  realized  the  gravity 
of  the  situation.  But  they  would  not.  They  treated  it 
with  levity,  they  laughed  and  joked  about  it." 

"Why?" 

"  An  odd  reason.  You  know  that  the  public  sale  of 
opium  has  recently  been  prohibited  in  the  Chinese  Em- 
pire. Of  course,  they  still  get  it,  but  obtained  surrepti- 
tiously, the  cost  is  high  and  the  quality  poor. 

"  The  Chinese,  not  only  the  ignorant  coolies  but  middle 
class  Chinese,  men  of  common  sense  and  some  acumen, 
held  and  hold  to-day  that  pneumonic  plague  is  simply  and 
solely  a  sort  of  sickness  induced  by  their  having  been 
forced  to  smoke  opium  of  indifferent  quality.  If  you 
reason  with  them,  they  point  out  that  whereas  the  class 
most  hit  by  the  high  cost  of  good  opium  —  the  coolies,  un- 


tr;        ' 


KHAJRBIK  AFTER  THE  PLAGUE         221 

skilled  laborers  —  supplied  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  the 
victims,  very  few  native  merchants  and  traders,  men  who 
can  afford  to  pay  a  good  price  for  their  pipe  fuel,  were 
hit.  But  even  the  Chinese  now  realize  the  seriousness 
of  the  malady  and  the  wisdom  of  paying  attention  to  the 
precautions  advised  by  doctors. 

"  Victims  were  stricken  with  frightful  suddenness. 
Walking  along  the  street,  a  man  woidd  suddenly  feel  un- 
well and  collapse  on  the  spot.  If  this  happened  in  the 
daytime,  of  course  the  victim  would  be  seen  and  taken  off 
to  the  plague  barracks  at  ouce.  But  we  used  to  dread  the 
sights  that  da^^Ti  would  bring  —  here  a  man,  there  a 
woman,  now  a  great  cluster  of  huddled  forms,  seized  dur- 
ing the  night.     The  streets  were  like  a  battlefield. 

"  Isolation  was  our  salvation.  The  Preestan,  the  native 
town  across  the  railroad  bridge  including  the  port  of  Khar- 
bin,  the  riverfront  of  the  Soungari  where  the  plague  raged 
its  fiercest,  were  divided  into  half  a  dozen  districts,  each 
being  absolutely  cut  off  from  any  communication  whatso- 
ever with  its  neighbor.  By  this  means,  sources  of  infec- 
tion were  far  more  readily  traced,  and  household  and  street 
quarantine  regulations  could  be  praticed  minutely. 

"  We  European  residents  had  not  much  fear  for  our- 
selves. It  has  been  our  experience  that  unless  some  of 
the  saliva  of  a  coughing  plague-stricken  person  was  re- 
ceived on  the  skin,  there  was  little  danger  of  infection. 
There  was  some  apprehension,  however,  as  to  the  part  the 
currency  might  play  in  conveying  germs,  especially  as  the 
pockets  of  dead  plague  victims  were  robbed.  Banks  and 
even  shops,  at  frequent  intervals,  subjected  all  Russian 
and  native  paper  money  to  a  stringent  sterilization  by 
super-heated  steam,  and  coins  were  treated  with  sublimate. 

"  As  to  the  European  cases,  many  of  these  were  doctors 
and  medical  students  in  actual  contact  with  cases.     Most 


222  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

of  the  remainder  were  the  lowest  types  of  Russian  and 
Chinese  coolies,  who,  not  content  with  the  wage  of  $15 
a  week  paid  by  the  authorities  to  the  men  employed  to 
clear  away  and  burn  corpses  —  not  an  unduly  hazardous 
task,  perhaps,  when  you  consider  that  the  doctors  provided 
medicated  face  and  hand  wrappings  and  chemically 
treated  gowns,  and  gave  every  advice  tending  to  greater 
safety  —  threw  precautions  to  the  winds  and  rifled  the 
pockets  and  clothing  of  the  victims.  ISTaturally,  they  paid 
the  penalty.  Great  numbers  of  Chinese,  too,  threw  away 
their  lives  by  this  mode  of  plunder. 

"  At  the  height  of  the  epidemic,  the  gi'ound  was  frozen 
iron  hard  and  coffins  could  seldom  be  buried.  Finally 
150  grave-diggers  dug  a  pit  large  enough  to  hold  about  100 
coSms,  and  the  dead,  both  coffined  and  uncoffined,  were 
thrown  in  and  cremated." 

The  following  vivid  summary  of  events  sent  to  London 
on  March  8th  by  the  Times  correspondent,  is  of  more  than 
usual  interest.  It  gives  an  idea  of  what  the  conditions 
really  were. 

"  The  first  case  of  plague  was  discovered  on  IN'ovember 
8th.  The  first  western-trained  Chinese  doctors  arrived  on 
December  6th,  but  were  prevented  from  working.  A 
fortnight  later  the  director  of  the  Army  Medical  College 
at  Tientsin,  Dr.  Wu  Lien-teh,  a  Cantonese  from  Singa- 
pore who  had  a  brilliant  career  at  Cambridge,  arrived  here 
with  a  number  of  assistants,,  only  to  encounter  heart-break- 
ing opposition.  But  then  the  Chinese  governor  of  Kirin 
came  here  himself.  A  Cantonese  himself,  he  had  per- 
sonal experience  of  the  advantage  of  western  medicine,  for 
his  own  son  had  been  treated  by  Dr.  Lien-teh  and  had 
recovered  from  a  severe  attack  of  typhoid.  The  governor 
realized  the  importance  of  giving  support  to  the  doctors. 
.  .  .  Soldiers  were  provided  to  form  a  cordon  around  the 


KHAEBI^  AFTEK  THE  PLAGUE         223 

infected  town.  Sanitary  measures  were  devised,  police 
and  a  corps  of  stretcher-bearers  were  organized,  and  sys- 
tem introduced.  The  Russian  authorities  supplied  100 
railway  cars  for  a  quarantine  station;  an  excellent  ar- 
rangement, for  they  arc  easily  aired  and  easily  warmed. 
In  these  1,200  'contacts'  are  living.  The  town  was  di- 
vided into  four  sections,  the  occupants  of  each  section  be- 
ing distinguished  by  a  different  colored  badge.  Disin- 
fecting stations  and  laboratories  were  created.  There  was 
daily  house  to  house  visitation.  The  cry  '  Bring  out 
your  dead !  '  was  beard  as  in  the  Plague  of  London. 

"  A  few  days  after  the  departure  of  the  governor,  Dr. 
Stenhouse  and  Dr.  Graham  Aspland  arrived  from  Pekin 
and  the  last  named  has  remained  on  duty  till  to-day. 
Too  much  praise  cannot  be  given  to  these  English  doctors 
for  their  courage  and  devotion,  their  skill  and  humanity. 
And  all  honor  is  also  due  to  Dr.  Wu  Lien-teh  who  has 
borne  the  brunt  of  the  work,  has  faced  constant  danger 
and  has  shown  administrative  gifts  of  a  high  order.  He 
is  the  chief  of  the  Chinese  Sanitary  Commission.  His 
energy  has  been  untiring,  his  good  humor  unfailing.  With 
him  have  been  twenty  Chinese  doctors  trained  in  Avestern 
medicine  and  nearly  all  speaking  English ;  with  him  also 
have  been  thirty  Chinese  medical  students  and  dressers. 
The  experience  they  have  gained  will  be  invaluable  in  the 
future.  Conspicuous  on  the  staff  was  a  young  doctor. 
Dr.  Chuan,  whose  experiences  have  included  a  two  years' 
residence  with  the  Chinese  Amban  in  Tibet  and  a  visit  to 
Simda. 

"  Success  attended  organized  effort.  As  I  have  said, 
plague  declared  itself  on  November  8,  but  it  was  not  till 
after  January  14,  after  the  visit  of  the  governor,  that  any 
effective  measures  could  be  instituted.  The  death  roll 
reached  its  height  on  January  28  when  there  were  IT 3 


224  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

fatal  cases.  One  month  later,  on  February  28,  no  death 
was  reported  in  the  Chinese  town. 

"  Infection  was  by  direct  contact.  Rats  and  fleas  played 
no  part  in  the  infection.  The  attack  was  fulminant, 
there  was  no  authentic  case  of  recovery.  Old  persons  and 
young  children  fared  better  than  the  middle-aged.  In  one 
family,  out  of  fourteen  persons,  there  were  only  two  sur- 
vivors, a  woman  of  seventy-one  and  her  grandchild  of 
two.  Among  all  the  bodies  cremated  there  was  only  one 
child.  Evidence  as  to  the  value  of  inoculation  was  in- 
conclusive, but  evidence  is  overwhelming  that  nearly  every 
case  of  death  among  the  Europeans  was  preventable,  and 
there  have  been  only  fifty  deaths  among  a  European  pop- 
ulation in  the  infected  areas  of  North  Manchuria  of  not 
less  than  60,000.  Astonishing  indifference  was  mani- 
fested in  the  face  of  danger. 

"  Fu  Chia  Tien,  the  Chinese  town,  when  winter  be- 
gan, had  a  resident  population  of  25,000  and  an  addi- 
tional floating  population  of  some  10,000,  the  numbers  be- 
ing estimates  only,  and,  if  incorrect,  err  by  excess.  Of 
these,  5,138  have  died  from  plague,  a  number  insignifi- 
cant when  compared  with  the  mortality  of  plague  out- 
breaks in  India. 

"  In  the  chief  plague  hospital,  1,600  plague  patients 
were  admitted,  and  1,600  died.  An  aged  Chinese  quack 
of  the  old  school,  named  Mr.  Ku,  assisted  by  one  dresser, 
was  in  charge  of  the  hospital.  They  cared  for  the  dying, 
superintended  the  moving  of  the  dead,  incurred  appalling 
risks,  took  no  precautions,  and  yet  enjoyed  complete  im- 
munity. 

"  Many  stories  are  told  of  the  plague.  In  one  shop  a 
tailor  had  eight  apprentices.  Two  of  these  died.  Their 
bodies  were  hidden  and  no  report  made.  Then  four  more 
were  stricken  and  died,  and  their  bodies  also  concealed. 


Tliis  one  ambulance  carried  3,000  plague  victims  at  Kharbin 


A    plague   pit   just   before  kerosene   was    pumped   over  the 
intermingled  logs  and  corpses 


KHARBm  AFTER  THE  PLAGUE         225 

But  now  the  master  was  unnerved.  He  gathered  to- 
gether his  money,  collecting  what  debts  he  could,  and  with 
a  hoard  of  690  roubles,  hurried  off  to  the  railway  station, 
determined  to  flee  from  the  city.  But  he  had  come  from 
the  infected  district  and  the  railroad  would  not  issue  him 
a  ticket.  In  despair  he  returned  to  his  shop,  and  three 
days  later  died.  Two  apprentices  now  survived.  They 
divided  his  money  and  looked  forward  to  the  enjoyment 
of  their  gains  and  of  the  property.  Escape,  however,  was 
denied  them.  Both  died,  and  when  the  bearers  came  to 
search  the  house,  they  found  the  money  equally  shared 
sewn  up  in  the  clothing  on  their  dead  bodies." 

To  correct  very  prevalent  misconceptions  on  the  sub- 
ject, it  should  be  noted  that,  up  to  the  moment  of  writing, 
pneumonic  plague  is  absolutely  fatal  with  a  mortality  of 
100  per  cent.     Inoculation  is  of  no  avail. 

The  good  done  by  the  doctors  has  been  entirely  pre 
Tentative  and  alleviative  until  death  comes.  They  cen- 
ter their  efforts  upon  the  prompt  removal  of  the  suspects 
and  contacts  to  hospitals  where  the  poor  victims  cannot 
spread  their  malady  and  where  they  may  be  made  as  com- 
fortable as  possible  and  their  not  very  great  sufferings 
eased  until  the  supervening  of  death,  generally  well  within 
forty-eight  hours  of  the  time  the  first  effects  were  felt. 

All  authorities  agree  that  when  a  cure,  or  a  partial 
cure,  from  pneumonic  plague  comes,  it  will  be  due  simply 
and  solely  to  experimentation  with  live  animals.  At  the 
moment.  Dr.  Zaboltin  has  established  himself  at  Kharbin 
with  numbers  of  Chinese  apes  and  guinea  pigs  from 
'Japan,  and  with  skilled  aides  is  proceeding  with  a  series 
of  experiments  that  he  is  confident  will  result  in  a  relia- 
ble  serum  with  which  to  combat  the  next  outbreak.  Bu- 
bonic plague,  it  may  be  mentioned  in  passing,  is  a  far 
less  terrible  malady.     It  does  not  attack  Europeans  nearly 


226  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

so  often  as  natives,  and  by  serum  treatment  the  proportion 
of  one  cure  in  three  cases  is  effected. 

The  official  Chinese  governmental  report,  which  is  ac- 
knowledgedly  optimistic,  gives  a  total  of  45,000  deaths 
in  Manchuria  and  the  northern  fringe  of  China  in  this 
great  epidemic.  China  spent  —  or  more  correctly,  Pekin 
disbursed  for  the  purpose  —  three  million  taels  to  combat 
plague.  Russia  was  reprehensibly  mean  in  her  appro- 
priations. Up  to  January  20th,  up  to  the  height  of  the 
outbreak,  she  had  voted  only  $40,000.  Japan's  very  first 
appropriation  —  and  she  had  far  less  at  stake  in  the  in- 
fected area  than  Russia  —  was  a  cool  half  million  dol- 
lars. 

The  interest  of  Kharbin  as  a  city  goes  a  good  deal 
further  than  the  dreadful  circumstances  of  her  recent 
plague.     Few  cities  have  a  more  interesting  population. 

Saturday  night.  Everyone  is  on  the  Kitaiskaia,  China 
Street.  Caucasians,  handsome  swashbucklers  with  pointed 
black  beards  and  a  swagger  in  their  walk.  In  spite  of  the 
summer  heat  each  wears  an  Astrakhan  fez  tilted  rakishly 
over  one  ear,  and  the  long  plum-colored  national  coat  with 
a  dummy  bullet  belt  slung  across  the  breast.  In  the  belt 
is  a  silver-handled  dagger  in  a  beautifully  chased  sheath. 
ISTumbers  of  women,  women  of  the  upper  classes,  well 
dressed  and  with  pretty  faces  —  a  rare  sight,  indeed,  in 
Asiatic  Russia.  Their  poorer  sisters,  too,  have  not  the  slip- 
shod air  of  the  Siberian  women,  who  always  appeared  to 
have  robed  themselves  with  the  fire  engine  at  the  door.  Nor 
do  you  see  any  women  in  peasant  dress.  They  wear  be- 
coming scarfs  of  filmy  black  lace  over  their  heads. 

There  are  plenty  of  mounted  police,  Chinese  and  Russian 
soldiers  with  bayoneted  rifles  slung  across  their  backs  and 
big  wooden  revolver  holsters  at  the  hip.  The  little  Russian 
school  girls,  in  smart  straw  hats  and  a  bunch  of  lilies-of- 


KHAEBIIT  AFTER  THE  PLAGUE         227 

the-vallev  tucked  in  their  blouses,  have  come  out  to  sit 
demurely  on  the  benches  along  the  broad  plank  pave- 
ments. A  tall,  bearded  Sikh,  with  a  bright  pink  turban, 
enormous  buttonhole  bouquet,  cutaway  frock  coat,  laven- 
der gloves,  brown  shoes,  silver-headed  cane  and  other  splen- 
dors, has  drifted  up  from  India.  Students  and  school- 
boys of  innumerable  sorts  and  sizes  stroll  about  in  their 
long  brass-buttoned  military  coats  and  military  peaked 
caps.  Officers  and  soldiers  of  a  dozen  regiments  and  ranks 
you  see  —  a  continuous  perform. ance  of  saluting  and  ac- 
knowledging salutes. 

A  profusion  of  color  prevails.  Eed-shirted  Russians, 
girded  with  gleaming  black  belts  are  here,  and  gorgeous 
cabbies  in  brown  Holland  smocks,  with  scarlet  scarfs 
around  their  waists.  The  Russian  cabbie,  you  know, 
shows  his  tints  well,  for  he  is  invariably  very  fat.  The 
thin  cabbies  actually  pad  their  breasts  with  cushions  as  a 
local  precaution  against  possible  taunts  from  their  fellows 
to  the  effect  that  their  masters  do  not  give  them  enough 
to  eat.  Now  and  then  a  group  of  Germans,  arm-in-arm, 
and  chattering  volubly,  drifts  by.  There  are  men  in  dark 
blue  military  capes  fastened  with  a  smart  silver  clasp, 
men  in  Panamas,  in  the  wide-brimmed  Stetson,  in  snowy 
pith  helmets,  in  flat  English  motoring  caps. 

You  see  Japanese,  the  men  invariably  in  western  dress 
and  more  often  than  not  with  gold-rimmed  spectacles. 
Their  women  folk  do  not  take  so  kindly  to  skirt  and  blouse. 
They  wear  their  pretty  native  dress,  and  clatter  along  on 
their  high-heeled  wooden  shoes,  here  and  there  one  with 
a  slant-eyed,  gayly-clad,  animated  little  doll  of  a  Nippon 
baby  packed  up  in  the  fold  of  the  ohi  behind  her  shoulder. 

And  the  Chinese,  in  their  thousands,  gliding  here  and 
there  in  the  throng,  noiseless  in  their  cloth  shoes.  But 
never  a  Chinese  woman,  though  a  few  hours'  journey 


228  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

south  in  Mukden  the  women  are  much  in  evidence.  A 
very  dirty  and  very  picturesque  old  Chinaman  pokes  along, 
smoking  his  long  pipe,  hand  in  hand  with  a  little  Chinese 
boy  robed  in  pale  blue  canvas  and  wearing  a  decrepit  derby 
hat  on  the  back  of  his  head.  When  the  Chinese  of  Khar- 
bin  want  to  pass  a  really  satisfying  evening,  they  get  hold 
of  a  dusty,  battered  derby  and  parade  the  streets,  wear- 
ing it  with  visible  eclat.  The  Celestials,  by  the  way, 
make  a  lot  of  Saturday  evening,  though  most  of  them 
work,  as  usual,  on  Sunday.  Rows  and  rows  of  them  pop- 
ulate the  stools  in  the  open-fronted  restaurants  that  do  a 
heavy,  if  ill-smelling,  trade. 

A  smart  Russian  coiffeur  on  the  Kitaiskaia  has  just 
imported,  to  adorn  his  window,  one  of  those  fine  wax 
ladies  in  low  neck  evening  dress,  a  ravishing  Marcel  wave 
in  her  golden  hair.  She  is  making  a  terrific  hit  with  the 
Chinese,  the  well-to-do  merchant  as  much  as  the  poor 
coolie.  They  have  never  seen  anything  like  that  before. 
They  never  suspect  such  resplendent  transformations  on 
the  part  of  the  "  foreign  devil "  ladies.  They  cluster 
about,  four  deep  around  the  window,  and  their  faces  are 
a  study.  It  is  one  of  the  Chinese  errand-boy  jokes  of 
Kharbin  to  flourish  a  dirty  cap  and  make  a  low  bow  to  her 
ladyship  when  he  passes. 

The  Chinese  are  discovering  a  new  profession  —  boot- 
blacking.  It  pays  very  well  and  the  labor  is  nil.  It 
suits  them  admirably.  A  coolie  toils  from  davm  to  dusk 
at  heavy  manual  work  for  a  wage  of  twelve  cents  a  day: 
he  can  make  five  cents  in  ten  minutes  as  a  shoeblack. 
And,  in  consequence,  shoeblacks  swarm  on  every  hand. 
From  bundles  of  little  carved  sticks,  like  miniature  sets 
of  golf  clubs,  the  operator  exercises  the  minutest  judg- 
ment in  selecting  just  the  one  very  toothpick  to  dislodge 
this  or  that  particular  speck  of  mud,   and  the  various 


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KHAEBIN  AFTER  THE  PLAGUE         229 

cloths   and   brushes  have  each  their   strictly   specialized 
function. 

Soldier,  sailor,  tinker,  tailor,  of  half  the  races  of  the 
Occident  and  the  Orient  pass  to  and  fro  with  gay  laugh- 
ter and  chatter.  Under  the  lovely  purple  evening  sky 
of  the  East,  diamond-powdered  with  scintillating  stars, 
the  concourse  flows  up  and  down  the  cobbled  Kitaiskaia. 
It  seems  hard  to  believe  that  a  very  few  short  weeks  ago 
this  spot  was  the  center  of  the  most  dreadful  outbreak 
of  pneumonic  plague  in  the  world's  annals,  the  streets  full 
of  dead  and  dying,  and  the  air  foul  with  the  drifting 
smoke  of  burning  pits  and  a  hundred  smouldering  houses, 
the  only  traffic  that  of  the  dead  cart  and  the  plague  van. 


Chapter  XV^ 
DOWl^  THE  BACKBONE  OF  MANCHUEIA 

FKOM  Kharbin  southward  we  ran  all  day  through 
well-populated,  fertile,  agricultural  lands,  vast 
plowed  fields  speckled  with  village  oases,  pretty 
straw-thatched  villages  embowered  in  foliage  and  snugly 
tucked  away  inside  encircling  mud  walls. 

Graves  everywhere ;  but  that  sinister  word  "  grave " 
has  a  cheery  ring  in  the  ears  of  rural  Manchuria.  Ever 
since  the  beginning  of  things,  when  our  ancestors,  girded 
with  hides,  were  roaming  through  the  beast-ravaged  for- 
ests, Manchuria  has  buried  her  dead  simply  and  beauti- 
fully by  laying  them  away  under  a  big  conical  pile  of 
stones  and  earth  out  on  the  parched  countryside.  They 
planted  over  their  remains  a  seedling  tree  or  two,  seed- 
lings that  will  grow  up  and  up,  each  year  affording  a 
greater  and  greater  bounty  of  midday  shade  to  the  ex- 
hausted workers  in  the  fields,  greater  and  greater  as  the 
poor  human  clay  below  crumbles  faster  and  faster  into 
dust.  These  are  the  only  trees  outside  the  villages. 
There  are  no  woods  and  copses  down  the  backbone  of 
Manchuria.  The  graves  are  generally  isolated,  a  group 
of  two  or  five  or  eight  cropping  up  here  and  there  often  out 
of  sight  of  any  human  habitation. 

Of  late  years   agriculture  has  made  great  strides  in 

Manchuria.     Square    miles    of    plowed    grainland    exist 

where,  less  than  a  score  of  years  ago,  were  only  acres. 

The  bean  is  the  principal  crop ;  it  and  its  by-product  fur- 

230 


DOWN  THE  BACKBONE  OE  MANCHUBIA     231 

nish  food,  light,  fodder,  and  fertilizer  to  the  natives,  and 
it,  at  present,  constitutes  Manchuria's  chief  article  of  ex- 
port. 

But  though  the  fields  are  cultivated,  the  graves  are 
never  disturbed.  The  plow  forges  straight  ahead  to 
within  a  few  feet;  then  it  curves  away.  So,  glancing 
across  an  open  expanse  of  miles  of  undulating  fields,  you 
see  cool  green  grass,  gay  swallowtail  butterflies  fluttering 
in  the  shadow  of  the  waving  elms  and  willows  among  the 
flowers  and  the  burial  cones. 

The  unhappy  crovv^s  in  this  part  of  the  country  have 
nowhere  to  build.  They  do  not  take  kindly  to  the  lower 
trees  among  the  fields;  the  Chinese  are  too  fond  of  eggs. 
In  one  spot  they  have  defied  convention,  precedent,  and 
His  Excellency,  the  Minister  of  Ways  and  Communica- 
tions of  All  the  Russians,  by  establishing  a  well-populated 
village  of  straggling  twig  nests  in  the  skein  of  telegraph 
wires  on  the  railroad  embankment. 

South  of  Kharbin  you  are  still  in  a  nominally  peaceful 
region,  but  Manchurian  China,  with  her  Hoong-Hooses, 
is  an  uncertain  pot  on  the  hob  and  has  an  unpleasant  trick 
of  boiling  over  when  one  least  expects  it.  So  the  Bussian 
trackside  guard  houses,  each  with  its  handful  of  picked 
troops  in  garrison,  are  turned  into  very  neat  and  service- 
able forts,  surrounded  by  high  walls  pierced  with  rifle  slits 
and  abutting  in  turreted  bastions.  The  train,  by  the  way, 
always  carries  military  guards  —  a  dozen  strapping  Cos- 
sacks from  the  garrison  of  Kharbin,  armed  with  rifle,  sabre 
and  revolver. 

In  the  dusk  of  the  evening  we  came  to  the  last  little 
Bussian  station.  On  across  the  plain  twinkled  a  blaze 
of  bright  lights :  at  that  point,  after  the  war,  Japan  am- 
putated at  the  knee  the  leg  on  which  Bussia  had  taken 
her  stand  in  southern  Manchuria.     Thus  far  may  Im- 


232  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

perial  Eussia  run  her  trains  and  lord  it  over  the  natives, 
thus  far  and  no  farther.  The  track  took  a  steep  curve, 
and  we  rolled  into  Chang-Chun,  one  of  the  oldest  and  most 
picturesque  railroad  stations  in  the  world. 

The  Eussian  train,  lit  only  with  flickering  candles,  pulls 
into  a  station  flooded  brilliantly  with  pink  electric  light 
shed  by  towering  arc  standards.  Under  the  shadow  of 
the  platform  roof  the  dusk  is  spangled  with  darting  col- 
ored paper  lanterns ;  every  porter  or  tray  hawker  or  rail- 
road oiBcial  carries  his  own  gaudy  Japanese  paper  lantern 
swaying  at  the  tip  of  a  short  wand  held  in  his  hand.  All 
about  is  a  scurrying  medley  of  Eussians,  Japanese  and  Chi- 
nese, and  here  and  there  an  American,  a  Briton  or  a 
German  overflowing  with  inquiries. 

On  the  opposite  track  stands  one  of  the  fine  trains  of 
the  South  Manchurian  Eailway,  brilliantly  illuminated 
with  electric  light,  modern  Pulhnans  and  beautifully  up- 
holstered sleeping  coaches  attached,  a  train  almost  indis- 
tingTiishable  from  a  modern  American  transcontinental 
limited.  It  is  drawn  by  a  powerful  American  locomo- 
tive with  a  tolling  bell. 

And  above  all  things,  you  know  a  porter  when  you  see 
one  on  the  platforms  of  Chang-Chun.  He  is  not  one  of 
those  gorgeous,  bebraided  officials  you  take  for  a  local 
chief  of  police,  nor  is  he  a  tattered,  shift-eyed  coolie:  most 
railroad  porters  in  the  East  come  under  one  or  the  other 
category.  In  nine-inch  letters  across  the  front  of  his  blue 
canvas  smock  the  Chinaman  has  POETEE  —  POETEE 
in  good,  clean,  white,  healthy,  shouting  English  charac- 
ters. He  turns  around  and  you  get  a  back  view.  There 
it  is  again  in  letters  nine  inches  high,  POETEE.  There 
is  no  deception  about  him.  Wouldn't  Euskin  have  loved 
to  have  shaken  him  by  the  hand ! 

It  was  seven  o'clock  next  morning  when  the  train  drew 


DOWN  THE  BACKBONE  OF  MANCHURIA     233 

into  Mukden.  We  took  breakfast  at  the  "  Yamato,"  the 
station  hotel.  Gone  now  was  the  railroad  refreshment 
room  of  the  Russians  with  its  oilcloth  table  covers,  its 
messes  of  pickles  and  salt  fish,  its  impossible  coffee,  and  its 
wretched  service.  In  its  unlamented  stead,  Yamato  ho- 
tels —  fine,  modern,  airy  buildings,  with  their  luxury  run- 
ning to  coolness  and  comfort  in  the  place  of  gaudy  wall 
papers  and  tarnished  gilt  tossed  about  by  the  pailful. 
Cosy  wicker  basket  chairs,  fern-embowered  lounges  in- 
stead of  the  crimson  plush  sweepings  of  the  fake  furni- 
ture factories  of  Paris  and  Moscow,  tattered  and  scarred 
by  drunken  orgies.  A  restful  atmosphere  until  you  get 
your  bill  and  find  its  charges  equal  to  those  of  the  most 
fashionable  of  New  York  hotels. 

Mukden,  of  course,  played  an  important  part  in  the 
Russo-Japanese  War.  At  this  spot  the  tide  of  battle 
turned  seven  times.  It  also  figured  with  sad  prominence 
in  the  recent  epidemic  of  pneumonic  plague.  Kharbin 
and  Mukden  were  the  two  worst  plague  centers.  Kharbin 
traced  172  deaths  in  one  day  and  had  well  over  100  a  day 
for  weeks  at  a  time.  Mukden  had  about  thirty  deaths  a 
day  during  her  worst  three  weeks. 

We  at  home  sometimes  wonder  how  a  sphere  of  in- 
fluence works,  how  the  Japanese  or  Russians  can  main- 
tain the  whip  hand  of  Manchuria  while  it  is  still  a  prov- 
ince of  China  populated  by  Manchus  and  Chinese  and 
governed  by  a  Chinese  viceroy,  who,  by  the  way,  has 
about  as  much  real  authority  in  his  province  as  one  of 
those  red-capped  porters  has  in  the  running  of  a  great 
American  railroad  terminal.  The  matter  is  very  simple. 
Here  is  your  foreign  railroad,  built  with  foreign  capital, 
worked  by  foreign  employees,  being  financed  in  the  work- 
ing by  foreign  money. 

The  branch  of  the  railroad  between  Manchuria  on  the 


234  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

eastern  Siberian  frontier  and  Popranitchnaia,  the  last 
station  on  the  Maritime-Manchuria  border,  and  the  line 
south  from  Kharbin  to  Chang-Chun  is  known  officially  as 
the  Chinese  Eastern  Railroad. 

The  building  of  this  railroad  was  permitted  by  China; 
and  she  rashly  sanctioned  "  railroad  reservations  "  at  cer- 
tain points,  bulbous  swelling  arteries  along  the  railroad 
vein.  China  allowed  a  Russian  "  railroad  reservation  " 
at  Eiarbin  where  twenty-five  years  ago  there  was  not  a 
subject  of  the  Tsar.  So  Russia  builded  thereon  a 
little  town,  and  kept  its  population  down  until  her  posi- 
tion was  sufficiently  assured  for  her  to  come  out  boldly 
and  enlarge  that  town  until  to-day  it  is  the  capital  of 
northeast  Asia. 

The  houses  are  all  Russian.  The  police  are  largely 
Russian.  Kharbin  is  so  Russian  that  they  dare  to  hang 
printed  notices  in  hotels  telling  you  to  lodge  your  Rus- 
sian passport  for  inspection  at  the  Russian  police  station 
before  you  have  unstrapped  your  trunks.  The  colos- 
sal impertinence  of  the  thing  —  Russian  police  surveil- 
lance in  the  heart  of  a  Chinese  province!  This  passport 
request,  however,  is  a  sheer  bluff.  We  refused  point 
blank  to  discuss  our  business  or  chat  about  passports 
with  the  policeman  they  sent  to  pay  us  a  call  at  the  hotel. 
He  smiled,  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  departed.  We 
were  not  bothered  again  during  our  stay  of  several  days. 
Mr.  Eisher,  the  American  consul-general  of  Manchuria, 
put  up  a  long  fight  at  Kharbin  during  his  residence  in 
the  city  to  establish  the  right  of  the  American  citizen  to 
refuse  to  submit  to  this  humiliating  Russian  police  sur- 
veillance. The  Russians  hit  back,  literally  as  well  as  meta- 
phorically, for  the  consul's  life  was  made  a  burden  to  him, 
and  on  several  occasions  mud  and  stones  were  thrown  at 
him  in  the  streets. 


A  village  scene  in  Manchuria 


An    archway   in   the   wall    of    Mukden 


DOWN  THE  BACK130NE  OF  MANCHUEIA     235 

One  may  spin  a  web  of  verbal  felicities  and  pleasant 
diplomatic  phrases  to  deal  with  the  situation,  but  the 
cold,  hard,  bed-rock  fact  is  that  Russia  is  never  going  to 
evacuate  the  great  city  of  Kharbin  until,  in  the  last  event, 
she  has  made  out  a  bill  for  her  property  there  and  had 
it  settled  without  any  discounts  for  cash  or  other  economi- 
cal amenities.  Russia  is  not  so  blind  to  the  advantages 
of  subtlety  as  to  pave  her  streets  with  silver  and  gold,  and 
to  set  the  bolts  of  her  quays  and  bridges  in  collars  of  dia- 
monds, but  don't  imagine  that  she  is  slothful  in  enhancing 
the  face  value  of  her  property. 

She  is  content  with  a  very  slight  regard  for  appearances, 
content  with  veiling  the  nakedness  of  her  designs  in  the 
.most  summery  of  gauzes.  The  Imperial  Government  at 
Petersburg  is  the  railroad,  and  the  railroad  is  collecting, 
with  the  vigor  of  an  enthusiast,  anything  Kharbinian  and 
tangible  you  care  to  offer  it  provided  only  that  that  thing 
is  rooted  firmly  and  squarely  in  the  soil  of  the  city,  and 
that  it  can  be  heavily  priced  in  the  event  of  a  sale  valua- 
tion. Not  only  will  the  railroad  buy,  but  it  will  build 
and  is  building,  plenty  of  solid,  substantial,  cosy  hotels, 
blocks  of  offices,  and  fine  residences.  It  has  recently  run 
up  a  "  merchants'  exchange "  that  would  suit  Chicago. 
It  owns  in  Kharbin  a  Chinese  daily  newspaper  and  a  Rus- 
sian daily  whose  reassuring  lies,  in  a  vain  effort  to  avert 
damage  to  railroad  passenger  receipts,  were  the  grim  joke  of 
the  city  during  the  early  days  of  the  plague.  So  you 
can  see  clearly  that  there  is  a  nice  little  bill  mounting  up 
for  China  before  she  can  gain  the  commercial  ascendancy 
of  Kharbin. 

Even  as  Russia  is  playing  this  game  in  the  north,  Japan 
with  no  less  skill  and  a  good  deal  more  blatant  impu- 
dence, is  following  suit  in  the  south.  South  of  Chang- 
Chun  the  Japanese  Government  is  the  South  Manchurian 


236  THEOUGH  SIBEEIA 

Eailway,  a  trunk  line  with  three  branches,  in  all  706 
miles.  According  to  its  Articles  of  Constitution,  the 
stock  in  this  corporation  can  be  held  only  by  the  Japanese 
and  Chinese  Governments  and  natives  of  those  two  coun- 
tries. The  S.  M.  E.  owns  and  operates  every  public 
utility  south  of  Chang-Chun.  It  controls,  beside  the 
transportation  facilities  of  the  railroad,  the  great  Pushun 
coal  mines  that  have  a  daily  output  of  6,000  tons,  the 
hotels,  hospitals,  schools,  telephone  and  telegraph  systems, 
and  the  line  of  steamers  running  between  Dairen  and 
Shanghai  and  Dairen  and  Kobe.  To  this  enterprising 
railroad  is  due  the  credit  for  the  modernizing  of  Man- 
churia since  1904,  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war,  many  of  Eussia's  plans  for  south 
Manchurian  improvements  were  only  on  paper,  and  that 
the  line  from  Kharbin  to  Port  Arthur  was  hastily  thrown 
down  the  peninsula  to  afford  transportation  for  troops  in 
the  impending  hostilities  with  Japan. 

In  addition  to  these  two  railroads  there  is  a  coalition 
of  the  spheres  of  influence  in  the  Eusso-Asiatic  Bank,  an 
institution  founded  originally  to  finance  the  railroad  con- 
struction in  Manchuria.  This  bank  is  a  great  power  in 
the  land.  Its  buildings  in  Irkutsk,  in  Kharbin,  and  in 
Dairen  equal  anything  in  New  York  or  London. 

During  the  past  year  Eussia  is  reported  to  have  en- 
tered into  an  entente  with  Japan.  Since  the  spheres  of 
influence  already  control  Manchuria  and  Mongolia,  it 
appears  logical  that  these  two  nations  should  divide  the 
land  between  them.  To  quote  from  the  New  York  Sun 
dispatch  of  August  15,  1912 :  "  Outsiders  desirous  of 
exercising  political  influence  there  or  influence  which  can 
be  said  to  have  a  political  aspect,  must  apply  to  the  two 
self-constituted  guardians  of  the  Pacific.  No  neutraliza- 
tion schemes  such  as  Mr.   Knox's  Manchurian  railway 


DOWN"  THE  BACKBONE  OF  MANCHUEIA     237 

project  will  stand  anj  chance.  They  are  eliminated  al- 
ready. The  Ear  East  is  earmarked.  The  policy  at  pres- 
ent decided  upon  by  Eussia  and  Japan  leads  straight  to 
the  partition  of  Manchuria  and  outer  Mongolia  and  to 
the  overlordship  of  those  two  empires  in  China  proper. 
The  closing  of  the  open  door  is  absolutely  certain." 

This  step,  of  course,  is  the  result  of  the  four  powers 
having  neglected  to  include  Japan  and  Eussia  in  their  list 
of  subscribers  to  the  loan  which  was  offered  China  after 
her  revolution.  Invitations  to  those  two  nations  were 
belated,  to  say  the  least.  Moreover,  the  purpose  of  the 
foreign  four  power  loan  was  so  obvious  —  to  get  a  lever- 
age under  the  Japanese  and  Eussian  position  in  Man- 
churia by  assisting  China  —  that  it  would  have  been  ex- 
ceedingly bad  form  for  Japan  and  Eussia  to  have  been 
put  on  the  list  of  subscribers.  Nevertheless,  those  two 
nations  were  finally  asked  to  join. 

The  reasons  given  for  the  Eusso-Japanese  alliance  are 
that  since  these  two  nations  are  contiguous  to  China,  they 
should  be  united  in  event  of  a  great  uprising  imperiling 
foreign  interests  in  Manchuria  and  Mongolia. 

The  question  that  naturally  arises  at  this  point  is,  what 
of  China?  Is  she  apt  to  boil  over  wdth  her  revolutions 
into  Japanese  and  Eussian  territory  ? 

He  would  be  a  fool,  indeed,  who  would  venture  to 
prophesy  with  any  show  of  assurance  how  the  balance  of 
power  will  lie  in  Manchuria  and  Mongolia  at  the  end  of 
the  next  fifty  years,  to  predict  who  will  be  master  in  the 
land.  Territorial  rights,  spheres  of  influence,  and  the 
doctrine  of  sheer  "grab"  have  become  extraordinarily 
intertwined.  Manchuria  since  the  Chinese  Eevolution,  is 
nominally  a  free  State.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  since  Eus- 
sia controls  the  northern  part  and  Japan  the  southern,  the 
Manchurian  officials  disappear  from  the  scene  with   re- 


238  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

markable  celerity  as  soon  as  they  happen  to  make  them- 
selves objectionable  to  their  guests.  Over  Mongolia,  Rus- 
sia has  a  protectorate,  and  the  population  of  that  province, 
tired  of  being  oppressed  by  the  Chinese,  is  siding  with  the 
Russians  in  all  Russo-Chinese  disputes. 

One  thing  seems  certain.  There  is  going  to  be  serious 
trouble  betvs^een  Russia  and  China  just  as  soon  as  China 
can  get  on  her  feet.  That  the  new  China  has  become 
obsessed  with  the  lust  for  territory  is  evident  from  her 
recent  attempt  to  add  Tibet  —  hitherto  an  independent 
State  —  to  her  possessions.  This  in  defiance  of  Great 
Britain,  and  the  presence  of  large  bodies  of  British  troops 
on  the  Indo-Tibetan  border,  and  in  nonchalant  disregard 
of  warnings  from  the  British  War  Office. 

While  in  Kharbin  we  called  upon  three  bankers,  cool 
men  of  acumen,  whose  business  in  the  capital  of  northeast 
Asia  is  to  watch  the  racial  trend  of  events  and  keep  them- 
selves closely  in  touch  with  the  situation.  This  is  what 
one  of  them  remarked,  and  the  statements  of  the  other 
two  were  quite  corroborative: 

"  The  Russo-Chinese  situation  in  Manchuria  and  along 
the  northeast  Mongolia  frontier  is  very  critical.  War  is 
bound  to  come.  When,  I  cannot  foresee  —  but  the  blow 
will  fall  suddenly.  If  it  is  to  fall  within  the  next  ten 
years,  Russia  will  most  certainly  come  off  victor,  but 
she  will  lose  an  enormous  sum  in  the  cost  of  mobilization 
and  operations,  not  to  mention  the  injury  to  trade.  And 
she  will  merely  be  left  where  she  was  before,  painfully  re- 
arranging her  household,  until  China  feels  strong  enough 
to  return  to  the  attack. 

"  At  the  moment  I  have  no  hesitation  in  affirming  that 
Russia  and  the  Russians  are  hated  by  the  Chinese  of  all 
classes.  Indeed,  feeling  is  strong,  if  subdued,  against  all 
foreigners. 


.DOWN  THE  BACKBONE  OF  MANCHUETA     239 

"  I  regard  it  as  significant  that  the  Russian  Minister 
of  War,  General  Siikhomlinoff,  has  just  completed  a  thor- 
ough tour  of  inspection  of  our  forces  and  defenses  in 
Manchuria,  and  that  Admiral  Gregorovitch,  Minister  of 
the  Navy,  leaves  St.  Petersburg  in  a  few  days  to  come 
out  to  Vladivostok  on  a  similar  errand."  ^ 

Said  another  banker,  discussing  the  Japanese  element 
in  the  situation : 

"  A  Russo-Chinese  war  is  certainly  impending,  I  think. 
And  it  seems  to  me  probable  that  urged  on  by  the  belli- 
cose faction,  the  men  who  have  assimilated  enough  mod- 
ern ideas  to  feel  keenly  humiliated  by  the  foreign  occupa- 
tion of  Manchuria,  China  will  open  hostilities  years  be- 
fore she  should,  were  she  prudent.  When  the  trouble 
comes,  it  will  be  sudden. 

"  The  real  menace  to  the  interests  of  the  civilized  world 
powers  to  be  found  in  the  Ear  East  to-day,  I  believe,  is 
the  possibility  of  a  great  Chino-Japanese  entente,  China 
receiving  with  open  arms  modern  Japan  and  all  her  psy- 
chological insight  into  the  successful  grafting  on  of  the 
methods  of  modern  civilization  to  the  intense  conservatism 
of  the  phlegmatic  Orient." 

And  what  of  Japan's  aims  and  policies  ? 

Though  Japan  had  not  yet  fully  recovered  from  her 
financial  losses  due  to  her  war  with  Russia,  one  is  tempted 
to  look  with  suspicion  on  her  purpose  in  this  recent  entente 

1  Apropos  of  these  visits  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  Eussia  claims 
to  have  500,000  troops  east  of  Baikal  Lake  at  this  time  of  writing, 
is  building  substantial  barracks  for  them,  and  has  just  finished  mak- 
ing Vladivostok  impregnable. 

It  might  also  be  added  that  the  topic  of  gossip  going  the  rounds 
in  Manchuria  in  1011,  gossip  quite  authentic,  was  that  along  her 
Manchurian  railroad  zone  Russia  had  two  regiments  of  troops  more 
than  are  permitted  by  the  Treaty  of  Portsmouth,  and  Japan  an 
entire  battalion. 


240  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

•with  Russia.  At  all  events,  the  Japanese,  unlike  most 
of  the  world's  people,  will  not  talk  politics.  Half  a  dozen 
British,  German  and  American  consuls  and  business  men 
located  in  southern  Manchuria  confessed  that  the  political 
opinions  of  the  educated  Japanese  with  whom  they  were 
acquainted  were  a  sealed  book  to  them.  There  is  not 
much  love  lost  between  the  lower  class  Chinese  and  Jap- 
anese in  this  territory,  and  the  Japanese  press  quotes 
daily  instances  of  high-handedness  on  the  part  of  Chinese 
policemen  who  amuse  themselves  by  arresting  Japanese 
as  suspects  when  upbraided  by  the  magistrates  for  their 
sloth  and  incompetency.  However,  there  is  a  prevalent 
opinion  in  well-informed  circles  that  Japan  aided  the 
revolting  element  in  China,  financially  and  otherwise, 
for  obvious  reasons. 

The  improvements  in  southern  Manchuria  as  planned 
by  the  Japanese  Government  and  carried  out  by  the  South 
Manchurian  Railway  are  evident  as  soon  as  one  steps  on 
the  station  platform  at  Mukden.  There  are  streets  and 
streets  of  substantial  western  buildings,  and  a  lot  of  money 
has  been  sunk  in  street  repairs  and  drainage  and  various 
municipal  enterprises. 

Mukden  proper  —  the  Chinese  city  of  Mukden,  home 
of  the  late  reigning  dynasty  —  is  a  long  three  miles  from 
the  station  and  the  railroad  reservation.  At  Mukden  you 
run  for  the  first  time  —  coming  from  the  west  —  into 
that  comfortable  symbol  of  the  Far  East,  the  jinricksMw. 

Mukden  has  cars,  none  of  our  ultra-modern,  spick-and- 
span,  enameled  electric  fopperies,  such  as  are  being  in- 
stalled by  the  mushroom  civilization  of  the  East.  They 
are  dirty  old  horse  cars,  and  Mukden  seems  to  be  proud  of 
the  fact  as  indicative  of  the  antiquity  of  her  western  in- 
stitutions, such  as  she  has. 


DOWN  THE  BACKBONE  OF  MANCHUEIA     241 

The  cars  are  decrepit,  and  sag  near  to  the  ground  in 
front  and  behind.  Their  warning  clarion  is  a  brass  bell, 
hanging  by  a  bit  of  string  from  the  purely  ornamental 
steering  lever  which  the  Chinese  driver,  behind  his  mules, 
grips  with  dignity. 

The  points,  the  junction  of  side  tracks,  are  navigated 
■with  touching  simplicity.  The  trackman  on  duty  carries 
a  yard  of  steel  line  under  his  arm,  as  a  sort  of  badge  of 
office.  When  a  car  leaves  his  siding,  he  takes  up  a  tall 
bamboo  pole  topped  with  a  white  signaling  flag,  and  rears 
it  on  high.  The  line  is  clear!  Far  away  in  the  dis- 
tance, down  the  thronged  native  bazaar,  appears  an  an- 
swering speck  of  white.  "  All  clear !  "  Presently  an- 
other car  arrives.  Tlie  trackman  lays  down  his  yard  of 
rail  at  the  points,  and  assisting  nature,  gets  on  the  off 
side  of  the  conveyance  and  shoves  it  with  his  shoulder. 
Simultaneously  the  driver  and  passers-by  make  a  terrific 
onslaught  with  fists  and  feet  —  one  man  we  noticed  smote 
■with  a  tall  earthen  pitcher  —  upon  the  unhappy  mules. 
And  thus  is  the  trackside  gained. 

We  had  too  much  baggage  and  blankets  to  take  a  rich- 
sJiaw  to  the  native  town,  so  we  chartered  a  Chinese  hack. 
The  horses  went  very  slowly,  and  the  Celestial  on  the  box 
kept  crying,  '' Ihe!  Ike!  Ike!  Yalia!  Yoho!"  in  a  tone 
of  pained  remonstrance.  "  Ike !  Ike  !  "  is  apparently  the 
local  term  for  "  Get  up  —  bless  you !  " 

During  this  trip,  by  the  way,  we  once  started  to  mem- 
orize international  hortatory  exclamations  to  horses,  but 
the  effort  came  to  naught.  When  we  took  to  our  cross- 
country ride  through  the  Shilka  Mountains  in  Trans- 
Baikalia,  we  found  that  a  pliant  willow  twig  did  all  that 
was  needful  in  the  augmentation  of  speed;  and  a  good 
deal  more  on  the  bridle-path  of  a  precipice  on  the  Lam- 
askaia  Mountains.     But  that  is  another  story,  and  we  took 


242  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

it  out  of  the  stumbling  ponies  with  compound  interest 
when  we  got  them  down  to  the  level  again.  In  America 
we  say  "  Get  up  !  "  and  "  Whoa !  "  In  Russia  you  talk 
to  the  horse  or  shout  snatches  of  song  to  hurry  him,  and, 
to  slow  down,  you  make  a  vibratory  noise  like  "  Br-r-r-r !  " 
with  your  lips.  Most  of  the  Chinese  drivers  cry  ''  Ydlia! 
Yolio !  "  to  hurry  a  horse.  They  do  not  have  to  make  any 
remark  to  induce  a  Chinese  horse  to  stop.  They  simply 
stop  shouting  "  Yaha!  "  and  the  horse  goes  to  sleep  on  the 
spot. 

Presently  the  tall  masts  of  the  foreign  consulates  be- 
gan to  appear,  each  topped  with  a  flag  —  the  Stars  and 
Stripes,  the  Union  Jack,  the  Russian  White,  Blue  and 
Red,  the  German  Red,  White  and  Black.  Then  we  passed 
the  Russian  consulate,  a  villa  slashed  and  ribboned  in 
emerald  green,  primrose  yellow,  and  a  jumble  of  tints  and 
hues  to  be  equaled  only  by  a  certain  row  of  little  houses 
you  will  find  a  couple  of  miles  down  the  road  running 
south  from  Breda  on  the  Dutch-Belgian  border.  There 
are.  Heaven  and  Holland  know,  some  hideous  erections 
on  the  face  of  the  earth,  but  the  little  Russian  consulate 
at  Mukden  is  an  assault  upon  the  very  throne  of  reason. 

On  and  on  we  were  driven,  until  at  length,  we  came 
to  the  great  city  wall,  towering  high  over  the  housetops, 
crumbling  age-old  gray  brick  with  shrubs  and  little  trees 
springing  from  its  many  fissures.  It  is  pierced  with  a  dark 
tunnel,  where  a  crudely  lettered  signpost,  a  scrap  of  un- 
painted  board  nailed  crookedly  across  an  upright,  an- 
noimced  in  straggling  English  characters,  "  Come  in  — 
on  right  side."  A  cosy  invitation  that,  to  be  a  model 
municipal  welcome,  lacked  only  an  appended  — "  Hang  up 
your  hat  and  make  yourself  at  home." 

The  native  city,  the  core  of  Mukden,  is  quite  Chinese. 
In  Kharbin,  though  there  are  tens  of  thousands  of  China- 


Afflicted  plague  patients  awaiting  inspection  in  the  Mukden 

hospital 


DOWN  THE  BACKBONE  OF  MANCHUEIA     243 

men  in  residence,  you  rarely  see  Chinese  women.  In  Muk- 
den they  pass  hither  and  thither  as  freely  as  in  Tsitsitcar. 
Russians  are  very  scarce.  There  are  some  thirty  Eng- 
lishmen, and  a  dozen  Americans  in  residence,  half  of  them 
being  missionaries,  mission  doctors,  consuls  and  consular 
assistants. 

The  scene  in  the  great  shop-lined,  booth-strewn  bazaar 
is  very  animated  and  full  of  odd  glimpses.  Bird  shops 
there  are,  of  all  kinds  of  little  brown  birds,  with  scarlet 
or  blue  collars,  stomachers  or  breasts.  No  cages.  Not 
till  one  drew  very  near  was  it  apparent  that  each  bird 
was  tethered  to  his  perch  or  the  wrist  of  the  shopkeeper 
by  a  tiny  thread  attached  to  a  wee  collar  round  his  neck. 

Many  blacksmith  forges  in  full  blast  are  seen.  At  the 
doors,  old  men,  too  aged  now  to  endure  the  fierce  heat  and 
the  sweating  turmoil  of  the  anvil  workers  within,  squat 
in  the  dust  with  a  glowing  brazier,  a  small  anvil  and  files, 
making  rude,  loose-lipped  iron  scissors. 

In  a  dingy  little  native  shop  where  we  were  looking  at 
odds  and  ends  jumbled  up  on  the  rough  shelves  let  into 
the  dirty  mud  walls,  a  telephone  bell  shrilled  into  our 
ears  from  the  gloomy  recess.  The  people  didn't  know  a 
word  of  anything  but  Chinese.  They  lived  in  their 
squalid  little  mud  den  after  the  manner  of  a  hundred 
previous  generations,  squatted  and  slept  on  the  mud  floor 
and  ate  of  unclean  foods  and  drank  of  horrible  water.  Yet 
here  they  had  their  telephone !  There  was  no  hold  for  it 
on  the  mud  wall.  It  was  fixed  to  a  post  hammered  into 
the  floor. 

A  hawk,  a  big  brown  hawk  with  much  shot-at,  frayed 
wings,  swept  insolently  do^\'^l  on  its  strong  pinions  and 
glided  along  only  a  yard  over  the  heads  of  the  street 
crowds. 

Manchu  women  passed,  with  their  towering  coiffures 


244  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

and  cheeks  a  mass  of  cherry  pink,  puffing  at  their  long 
pipes.  The  young  women  do  not  smoke  much,  and  when 
they  do,  they  generally  use  cigarettes  —  English  cigarettes 
from  Bristol. 

At  intervals  there  are  booths  of  money  changers.  They 
are  very  necessary.  Unless  you  are  fortunate  enough  to 
be  an  arithmetical  genius,  making  a  purchase  in  Mukden 
is  a  sore  affliction. 

In  Mukden  you  shop  with  Mexican  dollars  and  half  dol- 
lars, Russian  roubles,  half  rouhles,  Tcopecks  and  notes  of 
three,  five  and  ten  roubles,  with  Japanese  yens  and  sens, 
Chinese  casTi,  candareens,  jows,  Kitaishi  hopeclcs,  chons, 
old  brass  coins  pierced  with  square  holes,  and  a  whole 
gamut  of  Chinese  provincial  paper  money  which  will 
fluctuate  twenty-five  per  cent,  up  and  down  in  a  day  and 
which  banks  will  not  honor.  Be  assured,  it  is  some 
mental  strain  to  pull  out  a  handful  of  well-mixed  chons 
and  Tcopecks  and  candareens  and  roubles  and  jows  and 
sens  and  dollars  and  yen  and  cash  and  the  powers  above  us 
know  what  else  beside,  and  get  anywhere  near  the  sum 
you  have  in  mind. 

The  Japanese  are  a  pleasant  people  and  passing  courte- 
ous withal  to  the  stranger  within  their  gates.  The  porter 
at  Mukden  station,  learning  that  we  had  not  yet  bought 
our  tickets,  disappeared  into  the  office  and  came  back  with 
two  very  nice  pink  second  class  tickets  to  Dairen,  clipped 
however  in  two  places.  These  he  offered  us  at  greatly 
reduced  rates.  But  we  reluctantly  declined,  for  though 
the  destination  was  printed  in  English,  the  date  was  in 
Japanese. 

Jack,  as  a  fox-terrier,  does  not  love  the  South  Man- 
churian  Railway.  In  Siberia,  where  railroad  employees 
con&idei  attention  to  duty  a  bore,  you  can  kennel  your  dog 


DOWN"  THE  BACKBONE  OF  MANCHUEIA     245 

for  a  six-day  journey  on  a  clean  linen-covered  seat  in  your 
compartment,  and  the  conductor  never  objects.  But  that 
is  probably  how  the  conductor's  parents  live  at  home  — 
the  pigs,  the  chickens,  the  ducks,  the  cats,  the  dogs  and 
the  turkeys  all  nestling  cosily  alongside  Father  and 
Mother,  Ivan  and  Katerina,  on  the  floor  of  the  hut. 

But  the  Japanese  are  zealots,  and  take  trains  and  all 
the  toys  of  western  civilization  very  seriously.  They 
vs^on't  let  you  sit  on  the  steps  of  the  end  platform  of  the 
coach.  They  shut  every  window  and  every  ventilator  at 
dusk.  They  insist  on  fox-terriers  being  incarcerated  in 
cages  in  the  baggage  car. 

There  are  three  classes  of  compartment.  Taking  the 
second  as  standard,  the  first  offers  practically  the  same  ac- 
commodation, but  it  has  nickel  fittings  instead  of  brass 
and  an  air  of  haughty,  exclusive  desolation.  The  third 
class  is  considerably  cheaper  and  offers  the  most  com- 
fortable accommodation  of  the  three  for  it  affords  the 
Bussian  third  class  convenience  of  shelf  berths.  These 
remarks,  of  course,  apply  to  the  ordinary  trains :  the  sleep- 
ing coach  expresses  run  only  three  times  a  week. 

There  were  no  Europeans  in  our  car.  We  were  Jap- 
anese, with  a  sprinkling  of  Chinese.  Many  of  the  Jap- 
anese, none  of  the  Chinese,  read  magazines  and  news- 
papers. The  most  of  us  squatted  cross-legged  on  the  seats. 
On  this  night  journey  down  to  the  Pacific,  we  rolled  up 
in  our  rugs  and  slept  under  the  seat,  or  rather,  under  a 
series  of  three  back-to-back  seats. 


Chapteb  XVI 
THE  JAPANESE  IN  DAIKEN 

WE,  at  home,  associate  Port  Arthur  (Ejojun) 
with  Japanese  development  in  her  newly  con- 
quered territory  on  the  Asiatic  mainland  across 
the  Yellow  Sea.     That  is  an  error. 

Japan  is  making  her  commercial  and  residential  cap- 
ital at  Dairen  (Ty-lien  to  the  Chinese;  formerly  Dalny  to 
the  Eussians),  Dairen  picturesquely  situated  in  a  deep, 
land-locked  harbor,  thirty  miles  away  to  the  east.  And  a 
very  good  colonial  capital  she  is  making  of  it,  too. 

Dairen  has  none  of  the  depressing  atmosphere  of 
colonial  Russia.  Her  people  are  all  full  of  the  joy  of 
living.  They  have  adopted  the  English  tongue  with 
Anglo-Saxon  institutions  and  Anglo-Saxon  dress  for  men. 
In  spite  of  frequent  accidents  —  as  witness  signboards 
crying  "  Earber  "  and  "  Bar  Ber  "  and  "  Boot  and  Shoe- 
makea  " —  the  adoption  is  successful. 

While  the  Eussians  laid  well  the  foundations  of  the 
city,  the  houses  built  since  the  war  are  substantial  modern 
brick  and  stone  structures  that  would  do  credit  to  New 
York  or  London.  The  pavements  are  smooth,  well-fitted 
slabs  of  granite  and  concrete.  Many  streets  are  as 
smooth  as  billiard  tables,  and  clean,  deep  drainage  con- 
duits line  them.  There  is  an  excellent  electric  trolley 
system  with  large,  swift,  comfortable  cars  of  the  type  to 
be  seen  on  our  interurban  lines.     They  have  the  sensible 

plan  of  charging  four  sen,  about  two  cents,  for  any  num- 

246 


THE  JAPANESE  IN  DAIEEN  247 

ber  of  rides  on  any  number  of  routes  during  the  thirty 
minutes  succeeding  the  issue  of  the  ticket.  And  the  sys- 
tem is  deriving  large  profits  from  running  fast  freight 
cars  at  lower  tonnage  rates  than  even  coolie  bullock  carts, 
a  hint  that  our  own  municipalities  might  study  with  ad- 
vantage. 

The  town  is  well  lit  by  electricity,  and  automatic  tele- 
phone boxes  crop  up  on  street  corners.  There  is  a  little 
four  page  sheet  of  a  newspaper  in  English  every  evening, 
and  a  couple  of  well-printed  Japanese  dailies  with  some 
of  the  finest  photographic  reproductions  we  have  ever 
seen. 

The  little  English  newspaper  is  quite  well  done  for  a 
paper  produced  daily  in  a  rush  by  an  entirely  foreign 
staff.  One  wishes,  however,  that  it  would  not  tack  "  Rev." 
on  to  the  names  of  long  dead  dignitaries  of  the  Buddhist 
Church.  It  does  not  enhance  the  dignity  of  the  affair  to 
write  of  deputations  paying  a  visit  to  "  the  shrine  of  Eev. 
Ekko,"  the  said  good  abbot  having  died  some  hundred 
years  B.  C.  Apperceptive  readers  may  care  to  see  what 
this  journal  has  to  say  in  the  issue  of  June  6  on  the  sub- 
ject of  life's  little  worries  at  a  Japanese  telephone  ex- 
change : 

".  .  .  Lady  supervisors  will  be  seen  nearly  at  all  times 
walking  back  and  forth  behind  the  operators'  chairs, 
watching  over  the  manner  in  which  the  girls  do  their  work 
and  putting  in  a  word  or  two,  when  necessary,  to  give  a 
hint  or  a  piece  of  mind. 

"When  a  particular  section  is  crowded  with  a  rush  of 
business,  it  will  often  be  transferred  to  another  section 
which  is  comparatively  leisurely. 

"  The  third  lady  acts  in  the  capacity  of  chief  operator 
whose  duties  are  to  enquire  into  '  engaged '  cases,  to  ring 
up  a  subscriber  whose  tel.  no.  is  unknown  to  the  sender 


248  THEOUGH  SIBEKIA 

of  an  intended  message,  and  to  give  attention  to  tlie  other 
complaints  about  the  service  in  general,  subject  to  the 
direction  of  the  man  supervisor. 

"  Some  of  the  clients  seem  to  persist  in  their  misunder- 
standing that  all  the  girls  in  the  telephone  service  are 
operators,  and  when  they  V5^ish  to  secure  connection  with 
the  complaint  clerk  and  are  answered  by  her,  they  jump 
to  a  conclusion  that  the  operator  against  whom  they  have 
a  grievance  is  impersonating  the  clerk,  and  under  this  mis- 
understanding, lose  their  temper  and  hurl  vicious  lan- 
guage at  the  innocent  party." 

So  here  is  another  bond  of  fraternity  between  faraway 
Dairen  and  Detroit,  a  meeting  ground  of  East  and  West. 

The  editor  of  the  Nishi  Nishi  Shimhun  (The  Man- 
churian  Daily  News)  was  good  enough  to  take  us  over 
his  office  one  day. 

The  Nishi  Nishi  goes  to  press  each  night  on  the  crest 
of  a  wave  of  beer.  Every  man  in  the  editorial  rooms 
from  the  assistant  editor  to  the  cub  reporters  had  two 
or  three  bottles  of  "Ashai"  lager  on  his  desk.  Cork- 
screws were  de  trop  by  common  consent.  Bottles  were  all 
opened  by  the  simple  expedient  of  banging  off  the  necks 
against  the  leg  of  a  table.  The  place  was  ankle-deep  in 
broken  glass,  and  one  imbibed  internal  lubrications  by 
tilting  the  jagged  neck  of  the  bottle  to  his  lips. 

The  press  rooms,  where  the  paper  is  printed,  were  a 
curious  sight.  Linotypes  are  of  no  use  to  a  Japanese 
newspaper.  There  seemed  to  be  acres  of  type  fonts  about. 
The  editor  told  us  his  journal  had  to  keep  in  stock  some- 
where between  thirty  and  forty  thousand  different  types. 
There  are  fonts  of  wood  types  for  words  in  common  use, 
and  others  of  words  used  in  scientific,  agricultural  ^  and 
technical  subjects.  If  an  aspiring  young  Japanese  jour- 
nalist who  decides  to  take  a  short-cut  to  fame  by  using 


THE  JAPANESE  IN  DAIEEK  249 

strange  and  bizarre  expressions  turns  up  at  the  office  of  the 
Nishi  Nishi  Shimhun,  they  give  him  a  special  type  rack  all 
to  himself;  when  the  foreman  printer  gets  hold  of  one  of 
Mr.  Otikuro's  effusions,  it  is  accordingly  a  comparatively 
simple  matter  to  reduce  to  cold  print.  A  short  story 
writer  might  do  worse  than  take  the  theme  of  how  Oti- 
kuro  was  ruined  on  the  night  of  his  great  news  "  scoop  " 
by  a  jealous  colleague's  theft  of  his  rack  of  steel  expres- 
sions. 

The  printers'  devils  of  the  Nishi  Nishi  are  dainty  little 
mites  of  Japanese  girls,  tots  about  three  feet  tall,  clad  in 
beautiful  kimonos  aflame  with  brilliant  colors.  Squeak- 
ing like  mice,  they  skuttle  to  and  fro  with  sheaves  of  copy 
and  galley  proofs,  so  tiny  that  they  take  bee-lines  under 
tables  and  type-desks  without  any  fear  of  banging  their 
silky  little  black  topknots. 

The  proof  readers  are  older  girls.  Sitting  there  among 
the  familiar  paraphernalia  of  a  modern  newspaper  office, 
clad  in  pretty  native  robes,  they  gave  an  odd  air  of  un- 
reality to  the  scene. 

To  enter  a  Dairen  bookshop  is  to  realize  far  more 
vividly  than  you  could  by  any  amount  of  vague  rumor, 
the  incredibly  swift  superficial  Westernizing  of  Japan. 
The  bookshop,  one  of  a  number,  is  far  better  equipped  than 
any  you  could  find  in  towns  of  the  size  in  America  or  Eng- 
land. At  first  glance  one  assumes  that  the  books  are 
English  and  American.  There  are  all  the  dainty  cloth 
and  leather  bindings  that  have  come  to  us  within  the  past 
two  or  three  years,  hosts  of  neat  pocket  editions,  too.  But 
an  examination  shows  them  to  be  Japanese,  produced  and 
printed  in  the  tongue  of  Japan.  Not  that  English  and 
American  books  are  absent  —  far  from  it.  But  they  are 
not  frivolities.  Several  shelves  will  be  found  crammed 
with  text  books,  books  on  all  conceivable  topics  and  all 


250  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

instructive  —  business  manuals,  shorthand,  nautical 
terms,  engineering,  survey  work,  topography  and  litera- 
ture. School  readers,  plays  of  Shakespeare  and  Ibsen, 
readings  from  the  classics,  dictionaries  and  phrase  books 
galore,  and  sketches  of  philosophers  and  philosophy  are 
as  the  sands  of  the  sea. 

Yet  with  all  her  Westernizing,  Dairen  has  quaint  in- 
congruities here  and  there  in  the  course  of  her  daily  life 
that  amuse  the  Western  eye.  One  morning  we  passed  a 
gang  of  coolies,  superintended  by  a  Japanese  foreman  in 
English  attire,  engaged  in  constructing  a  fence  around  a 
coal-yard,  a  coal-yard  full  of  modern  machinery  and  me- 
chanical devices.  They  were  laboriously  cutting  three 
mathematically  exact  slots  in  every  wooden  upright,  slots 
through  which  to  pass  the  parallel  rails.  Nails  cost  no 
more  in  Dairen  than  in  New  York,  and  the  job  could  have 
been  done  in  a  tenth  of  the  time  by  nailing  on  the  rails. 
Yet  the  men  and  their  masters,  steeped  in  an  age-old  in- 
stinct, were  erecting  their  fences  as  their  forefathers 
erected  their  fences  three  thousand  years  ago. 

The  Chinese  coolies  do  all  the  unskilled  labor  of  the 
town,  go  a-fishing  and  pull  the  rickshaws.  Horse-drawn 
conveyances  are  few.  Mules  draw  most  of  the  freight 
loads,  and  the  rickshaw  coolies  with  their  smart,  green- 
hooded  little  vehicles,  whirl  you  up  and  down  town  for 
a  few  cents. 

Dairen  is  a  beautiful  spot.  All  around  are  the  moun- 
tains, small  mountains,  often  only  hills,  but  cast  in  the 
true  conical  mountain  mold  and  always  visible  from  the 
streets  in  the  center  of  the  town.  From  a  house  roof, 
as  your  glance  sweeps  around  the  four  points  of  the  com- 
pass, you  can  actually  count  some  dozen  distinct  peaks. 

The  water  front  is  delightful  —  unspoilt  by  any  reg- 
ular road  —  a  strip  of  rocky  beach  crowded  with  quaint 


THE  JAPANESE  IK  DATREN  251 

craft  and  fishing  gear,  redolent  with  the  concentrated 
effluvium  of  salt  breeze,  seaweed,  fish  and  drying  nets. 
Here  and  there  is  a  spit  running  out  from  the  land, 
thronged  with  every  imaginable  type  of  Eastern  boat 
from  the  great  Canton  junks  with  their  mountainous  win- 
dowed sterns  —  almost  replicas  of  the  little  vessels  of 
Columbus  —  and  puddling,  square-sailed  surf  prows,  to 
a  sprinkling  of  noisy,  ultra-modern,  steel-plated  motor- 
boats. 

Now  and  then  a  tiny  deserted  bay  of  jagged  rock  with 
giant  slabs  of  uptilted  green  slate  strata  running  far  out, 
spangled  with  myriads  of  little  pink  and  white  oysters. 
Three  miles  across  the  bay,  the  mountains.  Between,  and 
to  the  east,  the  ocean,  the  Pacific,  silver  at  dawn,  a  deep, 
deep  blue  through  the  sunny  hours,  and  mauve  webbed 
with  wreaths  of  fluffy  white  sea  fog  as  the  Eastern  dusk 
creeps  rapidly  down  at  the  close  of  day. 

It  is  Dairen's  joyful  pride  that  she  has  the  only  "  Elec- 
tric Park  " —  dreadful  term  !  —  in  Manchuria.  Up  on 
the  slopes  of  a  little  hill  to  the  west  of  town  overhanging 
the  sapphire  bay  the  Japanese  have  builded  unto  them- 
selves a  pleasure  resort  with  shooting  range  and  bowling 
alleys,  concert  hall  and  restaurant,  skating  rink  and  mon- 
keys in  a  cage,  "  donky  ride  5  minit  5  sen,"  and  a  roar- 
ing, ramping  merry-go-round  from  Euji's  Olympian  pro- 
totype, Coney  Island.  But  the  Japanese  have  that  esthetic 
instinct  which  smooths  down  the  crude  and  ugly  features 
of  even  an  "  Electric  Park." 

They  have  terraced  the  hill,  sunk  hollows  and  filled  a 
water-lilied  pond,  and  planted  a  little  menagerie  of  apes 
and  cranes  and  bears  on  the  eastward  slope.  Little  walks 
hemmed  in  by  bamboo  stalks  and  millet  straws  meander 
dreamily  through  groves  of  flowering  shrubs  and  mossy 
stunted  trees. 


252  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

All  Japanese  Dairen  troops  up  to  Fuji  Hill  of  an  even- 
ing, a  quiet,  smiling,  happy  crowd,  the  men  bringing  their 
babies  when  the  wife  is  too  busy  to  come.  The  entrance 
fee  to  witness  all  these  delights  is  just  five  sen,  a  little 
over  two  cents.  Tor  the  same  sum  you  can  hire  skates 
and  rink  for  a  couple  of  hours,  or  enjoy  "  5  minit "  of 
delirious  bliss  on  "  donky,"  the  merry-go-round,  five  shots 
in  the  shooting  range,  and  other  distractions.  For  nine 
sen  Dairen  can  sojourn  in  a  native  booth  and  sup  off 
three  eggs,  lemonade  or  tea,  and  two  rice  cakes. 

The  merry-go-round  is  very  popular.  The  little  oval- 
chinned,  dark-eyed  women,  babies  in  the  sashes  on  their 
backs,  one  hand  leading  an  animated  doll  of  a  child  in  a 
flowered  robe,  wander  up  to  the  turnstile,  and,  after  a 
great-to-do  of  larking  and  laughing,  off  goes  a  happy  load 
to  the  jerky  blare  of  "  La  Petit  Tonquinoise." 

Yet  it  was  due  to  the  training  of  these  childish  mothers 
that  the  bleeding  sons  of  Japan  hurled  themselves  over 
the  mangled  corpses  of  their  comrades  into  the  inferno  at 
Port  Arthur,  thirty  miles  over  those  silent  hills  to  the 
westward,  and  wrested  from  Lord  Wolsey's  "  slumber- 
ing lion  "  the  supremacy  of  northeast  Asia ! 

The  last  week  in  May  was  very  gay  in  Dairen.  Three 
big  celebrations  came  together  —  Navy  Day,  the  birth- 
day of  the  Empress  of  Japan,  and  a  festival  of  the  local 
Buddhist  temple.  At  every  twenty  feet  along  nearly 
every  street  of  the  town,  large  white  paper  lanterns  were 
hung,  white  lanterns  lettered  in  black  and  emblazoned  with 
the  red  rising  sun  of  Imperial  Japan.  Eor  three  days 
the  temple  had  a  highly  decorated  shrine  on  wheels  towed 
through  the  thoroughfare  by  lines  of  little  boys.  Con- 
stant, and  only  too  eager,  relays  of  small  youths  officiated 
as  orchestra.  Three  or  four  sat  in  the  cart,  under  the 
garlanded  trappings,  and  made  hideous  music  by  a  pro- 


THE  JAPANESE  m  DAIKEN  253 

miscuous  banging  upon  drums,  clashing  upon  cymbals  and 
tapping  upon  wooden  gongs.  Day  and  night  for  three 
days  this  wretched  conveyance  played.  Its  only  happy 
feature  was  the  Buddhist  priest  in  charge. 

How  do  you  picture  a  Buddhist  priest  of  southern  Man- 
churia ?  Probably  as  a  hermit-like  figure  clad  in  the  long 
flowing  robes  of  the  East.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  good 
cleric  was  garbed  in  a  sloppy  black  frock  coat  and  trousers, 
tan  shoes,  and,  jammed  over  the  back  of  his  head,  a  black 
derby  hat,  dusty  and  two  sizes  too  big  for  him.  He  wore 
a  red  flower  in  his  buttonhole  and  he  pulled  incessantly 
at  a  cigarette  that  drooped  wearily  from  a  corner  of  his 
mouth.  He  would  have  passed  for  a  Semitic  auctioneer 
of  old  clothes  on  the  East  Side  of  New  York. 

Visitors  to  Dairen  who  are  unaccustomed  to  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  Japan  will  get  a  shock  at  the  cos- 
mopolitanism of  the  Japanese  public  bath.  The  Jap- 
anese, men  and  women,  boys  and  girls,  bathe  together  in 
a  common  bathroom,  clad  in  what  the  Indians  call  "  all 
face,"  and  on  hot  summer  nights,  the  side  partitions  of 
papered  lattice  are  shot  back  and  the  courtyard  outside  is 
turned  into  a  sort  of  "  sitting  out "  lounge  for  bathers. 
"Not  are  the  Japanese  superficial  bathers.  Mr.  Hibbard, 
director  of  the  Dairen  Y.  M.  C.  A.  says  that  his  boys 
and  men  bathe  in  water  of  110  degrees  and  will  shout  that 
they  are  freezing  to  death  if  the  water  gets  below  96  de- 
grees. 

Some  of  the  waiters  at  the  hotels  know  little  English 
and  one  has  to  pick  up  a  smattering  of  pidgin  English  to 
establish  much  of  an  intelligent  entente  with  them.  Pid- 
gin English  is  not,  as  is  sometimes  supposed,  a  mere  gib- 
berish that  can  be  evolved  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  It 
is  quite  a  little  tongue  of  its  own.  A  bishop  in  pidgin 
English  is   a   "  number   one   topside   joss  pidgin   man." 


254  THROUGH  SIBERIA 

Baptists  are  "  largee  wasli  mans  "  and  Anglicans,  "  smal- 
lee  wash  mans." 

One  morning  we  got  into  difficulties  over  tlie  marma- 
lade question.  We  wanted  marmalade  and  they  brought 
us  jam.  The  little  waiter  seemed  puzzled  over  marma- 
lade. With  an  explanatory  gesture  we  repeated ;  "  Mar- 
malade.    Marmalade.     Kind  of  jam,  you  know." 

He  disappeared,  to  return  with  a  long  face,  "  No  can 
do  Jamyouknow.     No  can  do." 

The  Japanese  have  got  up  a  local  guide  to  Dairen  that 
visitors  should  on  no  account  miss.  The  advertisements 
hear  careful  perusal. 

There  is  Mr.  Mori,  for  instance.  Mr.  Mori  runs  a 
"  Chop-House  "  up  in  town  opposite  the  dwarf -tree  mart. 
He  announces  in  his  advertisement,  that  he  is  eager  to 
supply: 

"All  kinds  of  fish. 
All  kinds  of  meat, 
All  kinds  of  Partly  and 
All  kinds  of  Vegetables." 

We  went  to  the  Mori  Chop-House  and  tried  our  best 
to  obtain  just  a  few  kinds  of  "  Partly,"  but  the  mystery 
could  not  be  solved.  Mr.  Mori,  by  the  way,  is  naively 
candid  anent  his  spirituous  liquors.  His  port  wine  the 
menu  terms  "  part  wine  "  and  we  think  this  must  be  cor- 
rect. The  fare  of  the  restaurant  includes  "  Shirinp  and 
Clab  salds,"  "  Srow  or  Cucamber  salds,"  "  Chanpen 
Cider  "  and  "  Mineral  Water  Paint  Bottle." 

And  there  is  the  "  Public  Saloon  in  the  Electric  Park." 
Pathos  and  a  genuine  desire  to  please  read  through  the 
lines  of  its  announcement :  "  We  arranged  a  large  dining 
room  which  admits  fifty  persons  .  .  .  BAR  and  BATH- 
ROOM." What  admirable  insight  into  the  needs  of  a 
thirsty  generation!     Presumably  when  your  internal  ca- 


An  enormous  steel  gun  carriage  lorn   like  a  sardine  tin 


Where  the  Russiar;   Hcneral   Konrlrachcnkn   foil   in  the  siege 

of  Port  Arthur 


THE  JAPANESE  IN  DATEEN  255 

pacity  is  taxed  to  its  fullest  limits,  you  adjourn  from  the 
bar  to  the  bathroom  and  bathe  in  lager,  imbibing,  as  the 
bullfrog,  through  the  pores  of  the  skin. 
The  advertisement  continues: 

"WE  SUPPLY  FEESH  BEEE  AT  OUR  NEWLY 
EEECTED  "MILK  HALL." 

How  exquisite  a  convenience!  Mr,  Jihei  Kano,  leav- 
ing his  wife  and  the  missionary  on  the  park  bench,  watch- 
ing with  eloquent  approval  his  no  uncertain  footsteps 
making  a  bee-line  for  the  "  Milk  Hall,"  finds  all  the  sweet 
solace,  gallons  upon  gallons  of  it  and  "  fresh." 

Here  is  another  Japanese  advertisement  in  this  guide- 
book, but  one  which  we  shrewdly  suspect  did  not  bring 
in  the  anticipated  returns: 

"  Taking  the  Golden  Opportunity  of  the  Arrival  of  the 
American  Fleet,  we  should  like  to  make  the  following  ad- 
vice to  Officers  and  Marines.  They  had  better  drink  our 
artificial  or  BEAN  MILK,  which  is  invented  by  a  Jap- 
anese doctor.  We  supply  this  substantial  food  at  4  sen 
per  bottle." 

The  sight  of  the  president  and  directors  of  a  big 
railroad  giving  themselves  away  is,  alas,  an  all  too-fre- 
quent spectacle  nowadays.  The  habit  seems  to  have  spread 
to  the  Ear  East,  for  we  have  it  on  the  authority  of  the 
author  of  this  sketch  of  Dairen  life  that  here  "  Eegattas 
take  place  twice  yearly,  once  in  spring  and  once  in  au- 
tumn, and  the  president  and  directors  of  the  South  Man- 
churian  Eailway  Company  present  themselves  to  the  re- 
gattas." 

The  South  Manchurian  Eailway  Company,  by  the  way, 
does  everything  but  bring  you  into  the  world  at  Dairen 
and  up  through  southern  Manchuria.     To  be  explicit,  it 


256  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

frames  and  administers  laws,  collects  taxes,  administers 
police,  runs  a  steam  laundry  and  a  crematorium,  manages 
municipal  street  watering  carts,  owns  and  operates  the 
only  glass  factory  in  Manchuria,  owns  and  operates  a  silk 
reeling  factory,  administers  all  schools,  the  great  Port 
Arthur  Engineering  College,  the  Mukden  Medical  Col- 
lege, owns  and  operates  the  Fushun  coal  mines,  has  an 
archeological  and  industrial  museum  at  Dairen,  runs  ho- 
tels and  hospitals,  publishes  two  daily  newspapers,  con- 
trols the  rubber-tired  ricksliaws  and  the  agricultural  ex- 
perimenting station  at  Dairen,  a  plague  segregation  camp, 
a  seashore  resort,  trolley  lines,  steamer  lines,  local  and 
long  distance  telephones,  gas  and  electricity,  and  the  Euji 
"  Electric  Park." 

In  fact,  you  have  to  be  a  good,  all-'round  man  to  make 
a  success  of  your  railroad  career  at  Dairen. 


Chaptee  XVII 
SEVEK  YEAES  LATEE 

BAEE,  steep  hills,  gashed  to  the  bone,  to  the  living 
rock.  Huge  drifts  of  mangled  steel  and  shattered 
concrete.  Acre  upon  acre  of  hillside  crushed  to 
road-metal.  Never  a  tree.  ITever  a  bush.  Valleys  of 
death.  Here  and  there  the  crumbling  foundations  of 
house  walls.  Sparsely  grassed  valleys,  scarred  and  pock- 
marked at  every  few  feet  with  bare,  stone-hollows.  Port 
Arthur,  seven  years  after  the  most  terrible  siege  chron- 
icled in  history. 

In  most  instances  of  modem  times,  no  sooner  has  peace 
been  declared  between  two  combatants  than  steps  have 
been  taken  to  delete  the  dreadful  traces  of  war.  The 
scenes  of  fierce  encounters  and  stubborn  sieges  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  in  Cuba,  and  in  South  Africa  have  to-day  little 
more  than  their  artificial  monuments  to  recall  their  past. 

Japan  has  other  ideas  about  Port  Arthur.  Beyond 
clearing  away  the  dead,  taking  sanitary  precautions  to 
purify  the  battlefields  and  shattered  forts  of  the  district, 
and  occupying  the  strategical  positions  at  either  lip  of 
the  harbor  mouth,  she  has  done  very  little  to  obliterate  the 
grim  traces  of  the  price  she  had  to  pay  for  her  victory. 

The  town  of  Port  Arthur  itself  has  been  cleaned  up 

sufficiently  for  occupation.     Schools  have  been  started,  an 

Engineering  College  instituted,  the  little  park  on  the  main 

road  Nipponized,  and  a  military  museum  for  tourists  set 

on  a  hill  in  the  old  town.     In  a  field  that  one  sees  from 

257 


258  THEOTJGH  SIBEEIA 

the  car  window  as  he  comes  into  the  narrowness  of  the 
hills  there  is  laid  out  a  Russian  graveyard,  an  acre  or  so 
of  three-armed  crosses  with  a  little  shrine  to  mark  the 
spot  where  the  bodies  of  14,631  Russian  soldiers  rest. 
And  on  a  hill  overlooking  the  town,  the  Japanese  have 
raised  their  chamel  shine  topped  by  a  tall  shaft,  a  shaft 
in  memory  of  the  brave  men,  some  20,000,  whose  cremated 
remains  lie  beneath  it. 

Relics  of  the  siege  are  scattered  on  every  hand  —  great 
steel  gun-carriages,  torn  like  discarded  sardine  tins;  guns 
with  burst  breeches  or  jaggedly  rent  at  the  tips  of  their 
muzzles ;  shells  and  projectiles  of  every  size  and  in  every 
state  of  crumbling,  an  unpleasant  proportion,  too,  half- 
buried  and  unexploded,  though  a  reward  stands  for  the 
Chinese  peasants  who  report  their  location;  rusted  bayo- 
nets, battered  leaden  and  nickel  bullets ;  broken  rifle  stocks ; 
twisted  leather  boot  soles;  metal  regimental  badges; 
snapped  sword  blades  and  the  hilts  of  what  were  sabers; 
and  blanching  bones,  witb  here  and  there  a  grinning  skull. 

Port  Arthur,  seven  years  after  the  siege  in  which  per- 
ished a  tenth  of  a  million  men,  is  to-day  undoubtedly  the 
most  menacing  object  lesson  of  the  horrors  of  high-explo- 
sive warfare  that  exists  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

One's  first,  and,  perhaps,  one's  most  striking  impression 
of  the  spot  —  always  excepting  a  vivid  consciousness  of 
the  littered,  smashed  countryside  —  is  the  narrowness  of 
the  mouth  of  the  long  spacious  lagoon  of  a  land-locked 
harbor.  That  gap  of  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  of  placid 
deep  blue  water  between  towering  Golden  Hill  and  the 
low,  undulating  ridge  of  Tiger  Tail  Promontory,  seems 
so  still  and  insignificant  a  corner  of  lonely  Asiatic  coast- 
line to  have  been  for  the  most  part  of  the  year  1904  the 
principal  focal  point  of  interest  for  all  the  civilized  peo- 
ples, the  lock  whose  forcing  would  deprive  Russia  of  her 


i  * 


3 

-  o 


?^ 


SEVEK  YEAES  LATER       259 

dream  of  a  warm-water  Pacific  outlet  from  January  to 
December.  Port  Arthur  is  a  seaport,  but  you  cannot  get 
within  some  distance  of  the  sea  for  miles  each  side  of  the 
harbor,  so  intent  are  the  Japanese  on  reserving  absolute 
secrecy  about  the  extensive  coastline  fortifications  they  are 
piling  along  the  flanks  of  their  naval  base. 

The  Japanese  have  only  just  completed  the  clearing  of 
the  fairway,  the  raising  of  the  ships  to  sink  which  and 
to  bottle  up  the  fleet  of  Russia  cowering  behind  Tiger  Tail 
Promontory,  Junior  Captain  Hirose  rushed  in  under  the 
outpouring  of  all  Hell,  and  perished  in  the  attainment  of 
the  blockade. 

Neither  pen  nor  camera  can  depict  the  scene  to-day  at 
Tungchikuanshan,  the  celebrated  "  ISTorth  Fort,"  in  the 
burrowing  arcade  of  which  fell  the  gallant  General  Kron- 
drachenko.  It  was  here  that  the  Japanese  laboriously 
dug  tunnels,  charged  them  with  2,300'  pounds  of  powder, 
and,  with  these  gigantic  mines,  blew  the  fort  to  bits,  kill- 
ing or  wounding  every  man  of  the  little  garrison  of  320. 
There  had  been  earlier  mine  operations  in  and  around  the 
fort,  both  sides  tunneling.  The  Japanese  sappers  had 
lengths  of  cord  tied  to  their  ankles  and  asked  their  com- 
rades to  pull  back  their  corpses  when  the  Russian  mine 
should  explode.  They  knew  what  would  be  their  end, 
and  sure  enough,  on  October  27th  it  came.  All  were 
killed. 

TVo  miles  inland  from  the  harbor  203  Meter  Hill 
rears  its  gaunt  head  above  the  encircling  heights.  Our 
rickshaw  coolies  brought  us  up  the  winding  granite  rib- 
bon road  away  from  the  little  town,  past  the  last  mud- 
walled  Chinese  farmlet,  into  the  region  of  shell-swept 
desolation.  We  left  them  and  toiled  up  the  littered  zig- 
zag trenches  that  creep  toward  the  twin  summits. 

Ton  upon  ton  of  mangled  corpses  did  the  combatants 


260  THEOUGH  SIBERIA 

bear  away  in  those  dark  days  of  1904,  but  so  thorougbly 
did  the  shell-fire  churn  up  the  ground  that  many  skeletons 
remained  imbedded  in  the  soil  till  the  rain  erosion  of  the 
passing  years  should  expose  them.  Here  and  there  shows 
a  skull;  now  a  piece  of  shattered  human  hip  bone;  now 
a  cluster  of  femurs  and  tibiae.  Many  fragments  of  ex- 
ploded shell,  brass  cartridge  cases  and  the  cartridge  sockets 
of  the  automatic  quick  firing  rifles;  warped  and  twisted 
fragments  of  shoes. 

It  was  a  bleak,  sunless  day.     Halfway  up  the  hillside 

—  so  steep  one  could  only  just  manage  to  scramble  up  it 

—  we  came  into  low  clouds  of  woolly  white  sea  fog,  drift- 
ing inland  from  the  Gulf  of  Pechili.  A  hundred  feet 
higher,  and  every  sound  from  the  town  in  the  valley  below 
had  hushed  out  of  hearing.  An  impressive,  utter  still- 
ness —  how  striking  a  contrast  with  the  thundering,  death- 
belching  tumult  of  seven  years  ago !  —  lay  over  shrouded 
203  Meter  Hill. 

Higher  and  higher.  Something  loomed  out  of  the  fog 
ahead.  A  torn  gun-carriage,  resting  on  a  pile  of  road- 
metal,  shell-pulverized  ironstone.  A  little  farther,  the 
summit. 

Here  has  been  erected  a  low  pedestal  of  unornamented 
granite,  bearing  a  great  upended  iron  shell,  in  memory 
of  those  who  fell  in  battle  on  those  dreadful  slopes.  At 
its  base,  from  the  soil  once  shell-harrowed  and  blood-sown, 
has  sprung  a  cluster  of  marigolds. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THEUNflVERSITY  LIBRARY 
This  boo^il^ UE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


JUN     5  1943^ 


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JAI'  ^' 


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JREC'D  LU 

:!     MAR  1  9 
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UNIVERSITY  rF  r  ^  UFORNIA 

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